 In the fall of 1896, after having taken a three-month nursing course at New York's Cancer Hospital, Lathrop moved into a three-room cold-water flat on New York City's impoverished Lower East Side and began to nurse the poor with incurable cancer.In March 1898 Alice Huber, having responded to an article Lathrop had written about her work, joined her in this service.Shortly afterwards Rose's husband George died.