She selected nursing as a career, and during her two years' training at Charity Hospital, Blackwell's Island, first conceived the idea which was to give a direction to her life.
Moved with pity for the unfortunate women with whom she there came in contact and whose previous records were so fatal an obstacle to their securing employment, she determined to found a home where they could find shelter and an opportunity for work.
[2][3] Guilds had been established in Europe in honor of Saint Zita to provide homes for servants temporarily out of work, and to care those aged or incurably ill.[4] In 1890, with her personal savings she started single-handed a home in 24th Street near the East River pier where the city's steamboats landed discharged prisoners.
In 1906 Mother Zita visited her native land and returned with six novices, bringing the number of members to fifteen by 1912.
The number of women accommodated each night was from one hundred to 125; the meals supplied to men out of work averaged daily 65.
[8] St. Zita's home had moved to West 14th St.[9] During the 50s, Sister Mary John Burke attended beauty school to learn how to style and cut hair to help the women look their best when applying for jobs.
[10] The sisters made home visitations,[11] taught religious education classes, prepared children to receive the sacraments, and trained altar boys.
[12] In April 2020, Sacred Heart Parish in Suffern, New York expressed concern over the effect of the Covid-19 virus on the community at St. Zita's Villa.
[13] Sister Maureen Francis O'Shea, S.R.C.M., the superior general of the congregation died at the age of eighty-five on March 18, 2020.
the operations as an adult home for women would cease without Sisters of the order to tend to its residents as they would have, having taken vows of consecrated life.