Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born in New York City in 1774 — two years before American independence — to a prominent Episcopalian family. Her mother died when she was three. At nineteen she married William Seton, a successful businessman, and together they had five children. She was deeply devout, attending Trinity Episcopal Church on Wall Street. When William's business collapsed and he fell ill with tuberculosis, the family traveled to Italy hoping the climate would help. William died there in 1803. Elizabeth and her eldest daughter stayed on with the Filicchi family, devout Italian Catholics, whose faith and example drew her deeply. Especially the Eucharist — the Catholic belief in the Real Presence — captured her. Returning to New York a widow with five young children, she converted to Catholicism in 1805. It cost her. Many family members cut her off. Anti-Catholic prejudice was intense. Unable to find work in New York, she accepted an invitation from a Baltimore priest to open a Catholic school for girls. In 1809 she took religious vows and founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, the first American religious community. She established the first Catholic free school in America, beginning the Catholic parochial school system that would eventually teach millions. She did all this while raising her five children and suffering constant illness. She died of tuberculosis in 1821 at age 46. In 1975, Pope Paul VI canonized her — the first person born in what is now the United States to become a saint.