Alexandrina Maria da Costa was born on 30 March 1904, in
Balazar, a rural parish of
Póvoa de Varzim,
Portugal. Her father abandoned the family when she was very young. She had only eighteen months' schooling before being sent to work on a farm at the age of nine. In her teens she started to work in Balazar as a seamstress along with her sister. Alexandrina said that when she went with other girls to the countryside, she picked flowers that she later used to make
flower carpets for the
Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Póvoa de Varzim. At 14 years old, in March 1918 an incident changed her life. Her former employer along with two other men tried to break into her room to rape her. To escape them, Alexandrina jumped down from a window, barely surviving. Her spine was broken from the fall. Until age 19, Alexandrina was still able to "drag herself" to church where, hunched over, she would remain in prayer, to the great amazement of the parishioners. During the early years, Alexandrina asked the Blessed Mother for the grace of a cure. She suffered gradual
paralysis that confined her to bed from 1925 onward. She remained bed-ridden for about 30 years. The parish priest lent her a statue of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary for the month of May. ==Later life==