By James M. O'Neill
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Sister Ursula Infante, who founded Cabrini College when she was 60 and was its president for a
decade, died Monday at Saint Cabrini Home in Philadelphia. She was 104.
Founding the college was no easy task. In 1955, the Cabrini Sisters bought the Radnor estate of
Campbell Soup founder John T. Dorrance to start a college. But Philadelphia Cardinal John F.
O'Hara told Sister Ursula that the archdiocese already had enough Catholic colleges.
Undeterred, she secured approval from the other colleges, then convinced O'Hara.
"She was a very persuasive woman," said Antoinette Iadarola, Cabrini's current president, who
knew Sister Ursula well.
The college opened in 1957, with 37 students, all women, most graduates of Mother Cabrini
High School in New York, where Sister Ursula worked for 19 years as teacher and principal.
Born Anna Lawrence Infante on Feb. 18, 1897, in New York, she felt an early call to join the
Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini told her to
wait a few years.
As a young teen, Anna Infante went to work in a detective agency as a stenographer, the only
woman in the office. "Mother Cabrini asked if the men made eyes at her," said Sister Mary
Louise Sullivan, a former Cabrini president. "Sister Ursula blushed and said, 'Yes, sometimes.' "
Finally, when she turned 18, she was welcomed personally by Mother Cabrini, who would
become the first American citizen canonized a saint.
Sister Ursula earned a bachelor's degree from Fordham University in 1925 and a master's from
Columbia University's Teachers College in 1928.
Sister Ursula taught in parochial and private schools for six years, then joined Mother Cabrini
High. She also served as supervisor of all the Cabrini Sisters' schools in the United States. After
retiring from Cabrini College, she spent 14 years as director of Cabrini-on-the-Hudson Retreat
House in West Park, N.Y. She then returned to the college, and translated thousands of Mother
Cabrini's letters from Italian into English.
She was known for a quick wit.
"She always joked that you don't have to like vegetables, because they're not necessary for
salvation," Iadarola said.
A voracious reader, she had a knack for fancy embroidery, and was partial to Sousa marches
and Broadway show tunes. But her real hobby, friends said, was people.
"She was interested in each student, and their families," said Sister Mary Louise. Sister Ursula
was her high school principal.
To the end, she made visits to the Cabrini campus, and students confided in her. The campus
celebrated her birthday in February.
A viewing will be held from 9:15 to 10:45 a.m. next Wednesday in the Bruckmann Chapel of
Cabrini College. A Funeral Mass will follow in the chapel at 11 a.m. Internment will be at the
Cabrini Sisters' cemetery in West Park, N.Y.
Donations may be made to the Mother Ursula Infante Scholarship Fund at Cabrini College, 610
King of Prussia Rd., Radnor, Pa. 19087. |
