During the late 1850s, in Italy, the devout young Francesca "Cecchina" Cabrini, dreams of becoming a missionary. Cecchina eventually joins a Catholic religious order and is initiated as a novice. When she reaches adulthood, the young nun demonstrates her organizing abilities and forms the Order of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. She is then assigned to duties in America. There, Mother Cabrini, as she is now called, is made the head of the New York State orphanage in New York City. Her devotion to the oppressed and the sick leads her to found sixty-seven hospitals, as well as numerous orphanages, clinics and schools around the United States and Latin America. During her life, Mother Cabrini performs three miracles: she brings Sister Delfini back from the dead, restores the sight of a blind infant, and helps singer Dorine to regain her lost voice. She also intercedes on behalf of a condemned murderer at Sing Sing Prison, saving him from execution. In 1917, at the age of 67, Mother Cabrini dies of malaria in a Chicago hospital. In 1946, she is canonized in Vatican City, and is heralded as the first American to attain sainthood.