Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer (Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne)

On December 8, 1900, Rose Lathrop (better known as Rose Hawthorne) and Alice Huber formally founded the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer, a community later known as the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. Their beginning came at a time when cancer was widely dreaded and poorly understood, and when the poor who suffered from it were often hidden away, neglected, or refused care.

Their mission was plain and costly: to receive those who could not pay, to nurse them day by day, and to honor them as persons made in God’s image. They cleaned wounds, bathed failing bodies, eased pain, and stayed when others withdrew. Their work declared that no life is disposable and no suffering person is beyond love. In this they lived the truth of Christ’s words: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me” (Matthew 25:40).

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Rose was the daughter of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, yet her lasting legacy was not literary fame but sacrificial mercy. After personal sorrows and spiritual searching, she turned from public recognition to hidden service. Her heroism was not loud; it was the steady courage to face what frightened others—odor, infection, poverty, loneliness—and to respond with tenderness rather than recoil. She showed that holiness is often expressed through patient, ordinary acts done in faith.

Alice Huber

Alice Huber shared the same resolve: to bring compassionate, competent care where the world offered little. Together, she and Rose modeled Christian friendship and shared vocation—strengthening one another for exhausting work, maintaining discipline, and guarding joy. Their partnership reflected a love that endures, not as sentiment, but as daily obedience.

Rosary Hill Home

Their ministry took visible form in what became Rosary Hill Home in Hawthorne, New York, a place shaped by both practical skill and steady prayer. The sisters’ care joined the works of mercy with worship, reminding patients that they were not abandoned. Many arrived with fear; many found peace in being known, touched, and treated with dignity to the end. “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).