Saint Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad - April 24 catherineweeks
Maria Elizabetta Hesselblad
Memorial
24 April
4 June on some calendars
Profile
Fifth of thirteen children born to Augusto Roberto Hesselblad and Cajsa Pettesdotter Dag. Raised in the Reformed Church of Sweden. Due to economic hard times, the family moved regularly.
Emigrated to New York at age 18 to seek work to support her family back in Sweden. Studied nursing at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hospital where she worked as a nurse from 1888; did home care for the sick and aged. Her work took her into the large Catholic population of New York; her interest in the Church grew, and she came to see it as the place closest to Christ. She converted to Catholicism, received conditional baptism on 15 August 1902 by the Jesuit priest Giovani Hagen at Washington. Pilgrim to Rome, Italy in late 1902, receiving Confirmation there. She returned briefly to New York, but then sailed back to Rome to start a religious life. Settled …More