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The saints

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

A New York society widow who became a Catholic, lost everything, and started American Catholic schools.

Feast: 4 January (feast on the U.S. calendar) · 1774 to 1821 · The modern era · New York and Emmitsburg, Maryland

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A plain typographic plate: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, with the feast day.

Typographic plate by Stone & Incense: we found no public-domain image of this saint we could verify.

Home / The saints / St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Leghorn, Italy, 1803

Elizabeth was a well-to-do Episcopalian in New York, married with five children.1

Her husband’s business failed, and he died of tuberculosis in Italy with her beside him.1

Catholic friends there showed her the faith, and back home she became a Catholic, and lost many friends for it.

Patron of Catholic schools1; teachers1; widows1; those who have lost parents1

01St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Mother Seton

She opened a school in Baltimore, then founded the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland.1

She was the first person born in what became the United States to be canonized.1

Live it this week

Start over after a loss

Elizabeth lost her husband, her money and her friends and started again. If you’re rebuilding after a loss, write down this week one small new thing you want to begin, and begin it.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.