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Mother Angelica was born Rita Antionette Rizzo in Canton, Ohio, in 1923 as the only child of John and Mae Rizzo. Her childhood was marred by poverty and unhappiness. Her father abondoned the family when she was very young, and her mother struggled with chronic depression and poverty. They struggled to run a dry-cleaning business, living in a rat-infested apartment and barely making ends meet. Also, they suffered ostrocism for the divorce, and young Rita had very few friends. Rita learned responsibility at a young age, helping her mother run the business, and the hard work took a toll on her school grades. Later, she would remark "I worked hard for those Fs." She and her mother were not regular church goers, yet they were fervent in their Catholic faith and belief in God's providence. One day, Rita was making a delivery when she narrowly missed being run down by a truck. She said it was as though two strong hands had lifted her to safety. She immediately told her mother, and both took it as a sign. A few years later, at age 15, Rita developed a severe intestinal ailment and couldn't get medical care. She started praying the stations of the cross at her local church, and was miraculously healed. During one of her sojourns to St. Anthony's, kneeling before Our Lady of Sorrows, the impossible happened. "When I knelt I just knew it, I just knew it. I was to be a nun," Mother Angelica says. Directed by a local monsignor, Rita joined the Poor Clares, a contemplative order dedicated to adoration of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, in 1944.
