The daughter of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rose married George Hathrop in 1871. Troubled by George's alcoholism, the marriage broke down in 1895, but in the meantime (1891), they both converted to Catholicism. After George's death, Rose devoted herself to caring for the impoverished and the sick. She founded a home for cancer patients in New York City, which would serve as the foundation for her new religious congregation, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.
J. Quinn, "Rose Hawthorne Lathrop's Ministry of Mercy"