Kateri Tekakwitha

The young woman's face was scarred by smallpox and her eyes grew weak because of the disease. Tekakwitha or "She who bumps into things" was born in Auriesville and taken in with the uncle and aunts after her parents and brother died from the smallpox that had disfigured her so. She took the name Kateri - Catherine - when she converted to Roman Catholicism at age nineteen and left to live with a Christian community as she faced ill treatment and death threats because of her conversion. Five years after her conversion, she died in the arms of her friend Marie-Therèse, her last words "Jesus, Mary, I love you.". Witnesses say that her scars disappeared mere minutes after her death, her flesh finally mirroring the beauty inside with radiance and grace. She will be known for her charity, industry, purity, virtue of chastity and mortification of the flesh. A chapel was built near her grave site and pilgrimages have begun to honour her there.