Wife and foundress. She was the first native-born American woman to be canonised. Born in New York in 1774 to a prominent Episcopalian family, her father Richard Bailey, was a professor of anatomy. At 20 she married William Seton, an import-export trader. Their marriage was a happy one and they had five children, but in 1803, Richard died.
Elizabeth became a Catholic in 1805 and founded a religious order, the American Sisters of Charity, based on the rule of St Vincent de Paul