Celeste Raspanti, a volunteer archivist at the Cathedral of St. Paul, remembers stories her mother told about their family forging a friendship at the dinner table with St. Frances Cabrini as they helped her minister to the poor in Chicago. “She drank wine, she ate pasta, she sang songs,” Raspanti said of St. Frances.

When Raspanti’s grandfather was ill, then-Mother Cabrini asked to be called if death drew near. “She was holding his hand when he died,” Raspanti said. Those real-life episodes and more in turn-of-the-century Chicago are depicted in a book Raspanti published earlier this year based on her mother’s memories of Mother Cabrini and titled “Our Saint: A Friend of the Family.”