The records in this series relate to work done by Mrs Santospirito as President of the St Frances Xavier Cabrini Hospital Ladies Auxiliary. The Auxiliary worked to raise funds to pay off the debts incurred by the Church in building Cabrini Hospital and to contribute towards furnishing the new hospital. Mrs Santospirito was also President of St Benedict’s Hospital Well-Wishers Appeal Committee which raised money to assist the work of the Cabrini Sisters.

The Cabrini Sisters arrived in Melbourne in 1948 and ran St Benedict’s before the new Cabrini Hospital was built. St Benedict’s was formerly run by the Sisters of Mercy. There was a nursing shortage after World War Two and the Church found it was not able to staff both the Mercy Hospital and St Benedict’s.

Fund raising activities included fetes, raffles, dinner dances and card afternoons.

Note on Cabrini Sisters:
Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was the founder of the Missionary Sisters of Sacred Heart of Jesus, an international order which worked with Italian migrants. She worked in New York with Italians. Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonised by Pius XII on 7 July 1946 only 30 years after her death. She was proclaimed the Patron Saint of Emigrants in 1950.

The Cabrini Sisters came to Melbourne in 1948. Dr Simonds, auxiliary Archbishop of Melbourne, was in Rome in 1946 and attended the ceremonies for Mother Cabrini’s canonisation. Also present was Fr Modotti, former chaplain to Victoria’s Italian community. Simonds and Modotti made arrangements with Archbishop Mannix for the Cabrini Sisters to come to Melbourne to help ease the nursing shortage and care for patients of Italian origin. For more information on the Cabrini Hospital, see Gwynedd Hunter-Payne, Cabrini: A Hospital’s Journey 1948-1998 (Wahroonga: The Helicon Press, 1998).

Please note related series.

23  Cabrini Hospital (2) 1948 - 1962