St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774 - 1821)

Born in 1774, Elizabeth Ann Bayley was the daughter of a prominent physician. At the age of 19, she married William Seton, whose family owned a successful import business. They had two sons and three daughters.

Mrs. Seton embarked on a career of public charity. She founded a society of women known as the Widow's Society to raise money and give aid to poverty-stricken widows in New York City . The good works of this group prompted neighbors to refer to them as the "Protestant Sisters of Charity."

Through most of their married life, William Seton suffered from tuberculosis. In 1803, William's health deteriorated rapidly. When he expressed a desire to go to Italy to try to improve his health, Elizabeth left four of her children with relatives, and went with William, and their eight-year-old daughter abroad.

After weeks of travel, William died in the Filicchi home in Pisa . The widowed Elizabeth and her daughter sailed home to America in April 1804..

After much prayer and counseling from Archbishop John Carroll, Elizabeth accepted an offer from the president of St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore to establish a school for girls. She moved to Baltimore in 1808 and opened a small school. This modest beginning marked the start of the Catholic parochial school system in the United States .

Elizabeth Seton took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience on March 25, 1809 and was given the title of "Mother" by Archbishop Carroll. That June, she and her followers donned a simple black religious habit and set out for Emmitsburg , Maryland and began community life as the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph.

In 1810, the sisters adopted the rules written by St. Vincent de Paul for the Daughters of Charity in France . In 1814, the Sisters of Charity began opening parish free schools, academies and orphanages along the coast.

Mother Seton died at the age of 46 in 1821.

Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of the American Daughters of Charity, was beatified on March 17, 1963 and canonized on September 14, 1975.