Saint Who?
Saints Who Were Teachers
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
Widow and foundress († 1821) Feast: January 4
Few men or women have had such a profound effect on the education of an entire nation as has Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton. But Elizabeth, the first native-born American to be declared a saint, apparently never planned to become a teacher at all.
She was born in New York, and her father was a prominent doctor. Her mother died when she was young, and she often lived with relatives both before and after her father remarried. Although she was well educated, she later said she had a lonely childhood. When she married William Seton, a wealthy shipping merchant, at the age of twenty, she had hopes of providing her children with the happy, comfortable home life that she had not experienced. But she had not reached the age of thirty when her husband’s business and health failed, leaving her alone with five young children.
Elizabeth had always been a devout, generous Protestant. Her discovery of Catholicism helped her face her grief, but it alienated her from her extended family. To support herself and her children, she began working as a teacher. That work became a vocation and then an entire religious order of teachers. The Daughters of Charity of Saint Joseph spread and eventually became a cornerstone of the American parochial school system.
Generous Father, remind us to seek you in surprises
and in times of loss.
