Kaaterskill Books

[Women, Medical. Nursing] Alphonsa, Mother O.S.D. Rose Hawthorne afterwards Lathrop.

[ALS] Hawthorne's Daughter, Founder of an Early Hospice, Describes the Peaceful Death of a Cancer Patient & his "strange creaturelike growth".

Hawthorne, NY: 1906. [2] pp. Bifolium. 4 x 7 inches. Very good, folded. Item #45608

A interesting letter describing both the final days of a terminally ill cancer patient and the status of his tumor, dated June 15th, 1906, and signed by Mother Mary Alphonsa, from Rosary Hill, the nursing home she had established in Westchester County. She writes to Ms. Vaill, with news of her sick friend, Mr. Coe, who had been a patient at Rosary Hill. "How suddenly the aid has come, to our brave, soldierly patient! He seemed so very ... cheerful all these last days, and took nourishment, medicine, & whiskey without much difficulty, at last said he had no pain. I suppose the cancer shrank up, as is usual in the last three days of life. In an external care, we know from the shrinking of the sore that death must come to the patients, as it seemed to have come to the strange creaturelike growth...I know that you are relieved by his relief from constant suffering, but you have my very deep sympathy, for the grief your friend's great misfortune has been to you."

Born Rose Hawthorne (1851-1926), the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody spent the first 50 years of her life as a traveling socialite. When she was twenty, she married writer George Parsons Lathrop, with whom she had a son who had passed away at the age of five. The union did not last, and by the time Hawthorne was in her mid-40s, most members of her family and many close friends were deceased. In 1900, after having taken a three month nursing course, she took her vows as Mother Mary Alphonsa, and founded a religious order dedicated to the care of poverty stricken cancer patients. She established Rosary Hill nursing home in Hawthorne, NY, and her order, originally called the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer, would later become the Dominican Order of Hawthorne having established what was essentially one of the first hospice care centers in New York.

In 2003, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was nominated for sainthood.

We have been unable to located any of Mother Mary Alphonsa, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop"s letters for sale or at auction. Most are in various archives.

References:
1.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/rose-hawthorne-daughter-nathaniel-becomes-candidate-catholic-saint/
2. James, Edward T., ed: Notable American Women, 1607-1950; a Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1971) pp. 373-374.
3. Yost, Edna: Famous American Pioneering Women (New York, Dodd, Mead 1961). pp 109-119.
4. American Nursing: a Biographical Dictionary (New York: Garland, 1988) Vol. 1, pp. 206-208.

Price: $475.00