Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne

1851–1926, American nun, philanthropist, and writer; youngest daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In 1871 she married George Parsons Lathrop. In 1891 she and her husband embraced Roman Catholicism. She chose as a mission the work of helping penniless sufferers from incurable cancer and went to live in New York City slums to be near them. She founded St. Rose's Free Home for Incurable Cancer in New York City, and in 1901 she established for the same purpose Rosary Hill Home at Hawthorne, N.Y. She took religious orders after her husband's death in 1898 and became Mother Mary Alphonsa Lathrop. She founded a community of sisters to perpetuate her work; they are Dominican tertiaries. Her literary works include Along the Shore (1888), verse; A Story of Courage (1894), an account, written with her husband, of the Visitation convent at Georgetown; and Memories of Hawthorne (1923).

See K. Burton, Sorrow Built a Bridge (1937); A. T. Sheehan, Rose Hawthorne; the Pilgrimage of Nathaniel's Daughter (1959).