Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

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Seton, Mother Elizabeth Ann (1774–1821), founder of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, educator, first American‐born citizen to be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic church.Born in New York City, Seton was the daughter of Richard Bayley, a physician, and his wife, Catherine Charlton, a daughter of the rector of Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church on Staten Island. Married at age twenty to the New York merchant William Magee Seton, she bore five children before being widowed in 1803. The death of her husband and her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1805 precipitated both her estrangement from her family and her dedication to charitable work among the immigrant poor. She opened her first school in her New York home as a means of supporting herself and her children and reestablished it in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1809 at the invitation of Archbishop John Carroll. Her holiness soon attracted women desirous of living and working with her. Accepting responsibility for leading the women, she adapted the European Daughters of Charity rule to suit their needs. The tuition‐free day school, conducted in conjunction with a residential academy, set the pattern for the parochial school system that grew rapidly as other religious orders responded to the needs of a growing Catholic population. Within a few years of her death from tuberculosis, her Sisters of Charity undertook the direction of Catholic hospitals, thereby forming the nucleus of the Catholic health‐care system. She was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1975.
See also Immigration; Poverty; Religion.

Bibliography

Annabelle M. Melville , Elizabeth Bayley Seton, 1774–1821, 1951.
Annabelle M. Melville and Ellin M. Kelly, eds., Elizabeth Seton: Selected Writings, 1984.

Karen M. Kennelly

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton 1774–1821, American Roman Catholic leader, usually called Mother Seton, b. Elizabeth Ann Bayley, New York City. She was the daughter of a prominent physician. Her husband, William Seton, a successful merchant, died (1803) in Italy, leaving her with five young children. Soon afterward she became (1805) a Roman Catholic. This conversion severed her from her relatives, and she started a school in New York City to support her family. In 1808, invited by Bishop Carroll, she opened a school in Baltimore, then moved (1809) to Emmitsburg, Md., already the seat of a Catholic school for boys, Mt. St. Mary's. There she opened the first Catholic free school, the beginning of American parochial education and also founded St. Joseph's College (for women). About her she formed a community of women, which soon adopted the rule of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, the great sisterhood centered in Paris. This was the first American congregation of Daughters of Charity (or Sisters of Charity). Mother Seton was superior of her community; this had grown into 20 communities before her death. She was beatified in 1963 and canonized in 1975, thereby making her the first native-born American saint. Feast: Jan. 4. Her journals, letters, and memoirs have been published.

Bibliography: See tr. of selected writings by E. Kelly and A. Melville (1987).

Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann (1774–1821) US teacher and charity organizer. She joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1805, and soon became a leader in Church works. She founded a school for girls in Maryland, prepared the way for the US parochial school system, and organized the American Sisters of Charity. She was sanctified in 1975. Her feast day is January 4.