St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is the first American-born saint. She brought a quality Catholic education to many young students in her community at a time when Catholics faced poor treatment and discrimination in the United States.
Mother Seton was not always a Catholic. She and her husband William Magee Seton were Episcopalian and lived in New York City. The couple had five children and later took in William’s younger siblings when William’s father died. When her husband fell ill with tuberculosis, doctors suggested the Setons spend time in a warmer climate, so Elizabeth and her husband traveled to Italy. It was here that Elizabeth was first introduced to Catholicism. After her husband died of the disease in December 1803, Elizabeth returned home to New York and converted to Catholicism.
In order to provide for herself and her children, Mother Seton established an all girls’ school in Manhattan, but when people began to learn that Mother Seton had converted to Catholicism, they began to withdraw their children from the school. However, she later met Abbé Louis William Valentine Dubourg, a visiting priest from the Sulpician Fathers, who were trying to establish the first Catholic seminary in the United States. Abbé Dubourg also wanted to establish a Catholic school in Maryland, and Mother Seton accepted his offer to begin one.
Mother Seton had to start from scratch with her school. When she first began teaching, she taught faith formation classes to children at a parish on Catoctin Mountain in Maryland, but she did not have a schoolhouse to hold her classes in. Instead, she taught from a rock in the woods on Sunday afternoons.
The National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
You can walk in Mother Seton’s footsteps today. Her teaching rock is memorialized on the grounds of Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The nearby National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton stands where she established the St. Joseph’s Academy and Free School, an all girls’ Catholic school. There you can visit her home and schoolhouse and the basilica that houses her relics.
Mother Seton knew how to work hard, pray harder, and still maintain her inner peace and joy. Ask for her intercession as you open the Holy Hustle Planner – A Weekly Guide to Your Best Work-Hard, Rest-Well Life. Designed for hardworking women of all states in life, it features to-do lists, inspiring quotes, scriptures, goal-setting prompts, and challenges to inspire purposeful living. Live your best life in 2025 with Mother Seton’s example and this handy planner! Available today at The Catholic Company!
