St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton SC was born in the Colony of New York, in the city by that name. Her prominent parents were protestants, as the overwhelming majority of those in the thirteen lower colonies were, with her mother being an Anglican daughter of an Anglican priest. She married William Magee Seton, a wealthy 25 year old businessman, at when she was 19. Both she and William were devout members of Trinity Episcopal Church. Upon the death of her father in law, the family took in their six young in laws which added to their five children.
The undeclared war with Republican France that was fought on the seas between 1798 and 1800 rendered the merchant family bankruptcy, showing as an aside why the later War of 1812 was unpopular in New England, which depended upon trade with England. In 1803 William was sent to Italy to convalesce due to tuberculosis but died in the British city of Leghorn where he was quarantine. She was introduced to Catholicism while in Europe by Flippo and Antonia Filicchi, her husband's business partners, and converted in New York on March 14, 1805. She began to become involved in education and then became a nun, founding a congregation dedicated to the care of children and the poor.
She died in 1821 at age 46. Two of her daughters predeceased her. A third, Catherine Seton, entered the Sisters of Mercy and is being considered as a candidate for a cause of Sainthood.
She was canonized in 1975.
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