Hey Blake,
We enjoyed the new “Cabrini” movie about the life of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. It briefly mentions her ministry in New Orleans. Other than the high school named for her, are there other spots where she lived and worked?
Dear reader,
Cabrini High School on Esplanade Avenue offers the most tangible reminders of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini’s legacy in the city, but Mother Cabrini’s first stop in New Orleans was the French Quarter. It’s where she and her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus cared for the poor, especially Italian immigrants just as in New York, as depicted in the new film.
Born in Italy in 1850, Cabrini came to New Orleans in 1892, just three years after arriving in New York. She purchased a building at 817 St. Philip Street which had been a mansion but was a tenement house by the time she bought it. She opened a school, day nursery and orphanage there.
Soon a need arose for even more space for the nuns to care for the many New Orleans children who lost their parents in the yellow fever epidemic. Cabrini secured a $75,000 donation from Capt. and Mrs. Salvator Pizzati to build the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum in the 3400 block of Esplanade Avenue. During construction, Mother Cabrini lived in the nearby Pitot House on Moss Street.
The orphanage opened in 1906. In 1959 it was converted into a Catholic girls’ high school. In 1965, a modern school building opened on Bayou St. John behind the original structure. Mother Cabrini’s chapel and some of her personal items remain inside the Esplanade Avenue building.
The Cabrini Day Nursery on St. Philip Street remained open until 1999 as a Head Start Center. It was sold and converted to luxury apartments.
Mother Cabrini died in Chicago in 1917. In 1946, she was declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Since she had become a U.S. citizen in 1909, she was the first American to be canonized.
Among the tributes to Mother Cabrini in New Orleans is a statue on the Harrison Avenue neutral ground in Lakeview. There is also Cabrini Playground in the lower French Quarter and a Cabrini Court in Gentilly.
Cabrini High School also offers a "Walk in the Steps of Mother Cabrini" which their site describes as "a guided tour of Mother Cabrini’s bedroom, museum, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Chapel." For more information or to register, check here.
The event is the oldest freshwater fishing rodeo in the country.
