Due to financial reverses in 1874 all relocated to Sankt Poelten where she and her sister Maria Theresa attended a grammar school that the Sisters of Loreto were managing. In 1882 her father - who longed to return to his homeland knowing his end was near - acquired an estate in Lipnica Murowana near Tarnów and in 1883 moved there where her father died in 1885 due to smallpox; her sister Maria Theresia also contracted this but recovered from it. He died after having blessed her desire to become a nun. The siblings' cardinal uncle took care of them after this.