The youngest of 11 children, Maria Francesca was born into a family of peasant farmers. Known as Cecchina or "Chatterbox," she was small and weak and longed to be a missionary in China. Who would have thought seeing the photograph of this girl that she would one day become a saint? The photograph, made around 1860, shows Francesca Xavier Cabrini.
+© Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus | Cabrini University Collection