Born in 1870 in a small town in Spain, Genoveva had a difficult childhood. By the time she was eight, her parents and four of her brothers and sisters had died. When she was 13, doctors had to amputate her leg because of an infection.
Juanita came from a wealthy family in Santiago, Chile, where she was born in 1900. There was a chapel on the family property and Juanita attended Mass every day from the time she was a small child. She could hardly wait for her First Communion so that she could receive Jesus.
As a young girl, Joachina believed she wanted to be a nun, but she married Theodore de Mas, a man from a royal family in Barcelona, Spain, in 1799, when she was only 16 years old. They had nine children before Theodore was killed when Napoleon invaded Spain.
Edith Stein was born in 1891 in Breslau, Poland, to a Jewish family. As a child, she was an extraordinary student, and in 1916 she received a doctorate in philosophy and began to teach at a university. Her family was religious, but Edith had no interest in religion. Eventually she became drawn to the Catholic faith after reading the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila.
In 1873, Thérèse was born in the small French town of Alencon and was raised in a loving family with her four sisters. Like any child, Thérèse enjoyed playing with her cousins and siblings. When Thérèse was four her mother died, and her father moved the family to Lisieux, a town about 50 miles away, so that he and his daughters could live with his brother. Thérese's older sister, Pauline, became like a second mother to her.
Teresa was born in 1515 in Ávila. She proved at an early age that she was an intelligent and thoughtful person. Teresa and her brother, Rodrigo, didn’t play the same games that the other children played. Instead, they preferred to go to the garden and read. They were most interested in reading the Bible and the stories of the lives of the saints.
María Maravillas Pidal y Chico de Guzmán was born into an important royal family in Madrid, Spain, in 1891. Her father was also Spain’s ambassador to the Vatican. The family was very religious, and María was always encouraged to put God first in her life. She prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide her in knowing how God wanted her to serve him. God blessed María with a religious vocation.
Born in 1542, John was raised in Spain by a widowed mother who could barely provide for her sons. At a young age, he worked in a hospital and developed a great love for the poor and the sick. He sometimes felt that he was in the presence of Jesus when he was tending the patients. But John wanted to become even closer to God. He became a Carmelite friar when he was almost 20 years old.