Hawthorne Dominicans bring remains of founder's mother, sister home

Published: 2006-06-29

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of "The Scarlet Letter" and other classics of American letters, left more than a literary legacy. His daughter Rose, a convert to Catholicism, founded the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who have provided free care to poor cancer patients for more than 100 years. Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia, had a deeply happy and loving marriage but were separated in death. Nathaniel Hawthorne was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass., the town where the Hawthorne family had lived for some years. The widowed Sophia Hawthorne and the couple's three children moved to England; Sophia and her daughter Una died there and were buried in London. Now the remains of Sophia and Una Hawthorne have been brought home for burial beside Nathaniel Hawthorne, thanks to the Hawthorne Dominicans and some of their friends on both sides of the Atlantic. "It's the right thing to do," said Mother Anne Marie Holden, superior general, who is based at the motherhouse at Rosary Hill Home in Hawthorne, N.Y.

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