Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Born in 1851, she was the youngest child of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne. As a young woman she moved in literary and artistic circles, later marrying writer George Parsons Lathrop and publishing work of her own, including fiction, poetry, and essays.

After years marked by illness, grief, and the death of her only child, she converted to Catholicism with her husband in 1891. That change gradually led her away from literary society and toward hands-on service among people with incurable cancer who often had nowhere else to go.

In 1896 she founded what became the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, taking the religious name Mother Mary Alphonsa. The community dedicated itself to free care for poor cancer patients, and her life is remembered both for its unusual path and for its compassion in an era when such care was rare.