Rose Hawthorne Lathrop: Selected Writings ed. by Diana Culbertson, O.P. (review)

114BOOK REVIEWS These two experiences, in the south and in the north of Alaska, were symbolic of the kind of environment they would live in, one Sister of St. Ann after another, for a period of nearly a century. Eight of them are buried in Alaska. From Holy Cross the Sisters were summoned to Dawson in Yukon Territory to assist Father William Judge, S.J., with his makeshift hospital. This was during the gold rush in 1898. When Judge died in the following year, the Sisters acquired his hospital and remained in Dawson, serving in a school as well, until 1963. Four of them lie buried near Father Judge, in the cold, frozen ground of Yukon Territory. In the contents oíNorth to Share, then, one finds useful information about Alaska and Dawson, the hierarchy, the missionaries, schools and hospitals, and the people for whom the Church was there. Of special note is the author's history of Copper Valley School, which is the best published account of the mission's ambitious experiment in native education. Alas! the school failed, but none of the missionaries, least of all the Sisters, were to blame. If I have any criticism to offer for this book, it is this: it should have been published in hardback, in traditional format, to provide for its use for a long time to come. Wilfred P. Schoenberg, SJ. Gonzaga University RoseHawthorneLathrop: Selected Writings. Edited by Diana Culbertson, O.P. (New York and Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press. 1993· Pp. v, 242. S24.95.) Two years ago, when I reviewed Patricia Dunlavy Valenti's biography of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop for this journal, I characterized Lathrop as "an extraordinary woman whose story unquestionably deserves to be better known." With the appearance of Valenti's book and especially now, with the present volume—part of Paulist Press's useful "Sources of American Spirituality" series —Lathrop may finally be be receiving the sort of attention she is due. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop: Selected Writings consists of two sections. The first is a first-rate interpretive essay by the volume's editor, Diana Culbertson. In eighty pages of very readable text, plus extensive notes, Culbertson places Lathrop's life, religious experience, literary contributions, and accomplishments as founder of the Dominican Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer into admirable perspective. Although Lathrop's story has been told before, Culbertson provides new insights into at least two aspects ofit: the relationship between Lathrop and her collaborator, Alice (Sister Rose) Huber, and Lathrop's profound understanding of the interrelationship between contemplation and BOOK REVIEWS115 action. Additionally, Culbertson briefly but clearly analyzes Rose's ill-fated marriage to George Lathrop and the legacy of her New England heritage (particularly the influence of her father, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and, less well known but probably as significant, her mother, Sophia Peabody). Shaping the account is familiarity with not only recent scholarship on nineteenth-century American Catholicism, but also that of social and women's history. The remainder ofthe volume consists of examples and excerpts ofLathrop's writings, divided into three categories: letters, diary entries, and essays (most of them from Christ's Poor, the magazine Lathrop edited for the Servants of Relief). While all of this material is well chosen, it may not present as full a picture of Lathrop and her spirituality as might have been achieved. It might have been helpful, for example, had additional categories of Lathrop's writing been included here, such as talks she must have given to her Dominican sisters, or verse. (It should be noted that more pieces of Lathrop's writing, including some ofher poetry but not talks to her community, are incorporated into the biographical essay.) Also, the primary source material might have benefited from more of Culbertson's editorial commentary; in particular, it would have been helpful to know more explicitly than we can here how typical or atypical Lathrop's thought and writing were, compared to that both of her Catholic contemporaries and of other female reformers of the era. Nonetheless, it may be unfair to expect all this in a volume of relative brevity, intended to meet the needs of scholars as well as general readers. In the...