Emmitsburg, Maryland

October 23, 2013

The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

In 1975, Mother Elizabeth Seton was canonized as America's first native-born Roman Catholic saint.  Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born in 1774 to well-to-do Protestants.  She married William Seton when she was 19 and they had five children.  Life was good until 1803 when her husband died of tuberculosis and her family fortune was also lost.  Prior to his death, William, Elizabeth and their oldest daughter had traveled to Italy for warmer weather, under the advice of William's doctor.  Put into quarantine for 30 days because the Italians feared he had yellow fever, he never recuperated and he died shortly after being released.  They had been staying with a business partner and his wife (in Italy) who were devout Catholics.  After returning to America, Elizabeth converted to Catholicism in 1805 when Catholics were persecuted in the United States.  She went on to found the American Sisters of Charity and the first American Catholic school for girls, St. Joseph's Academy and Free School, in Emmitsburg, Maryland.  Elizabeth was described as "a wife, a mother, a widow, a convert, a foundress, an educator, a social minister, and spiritual leader".  She was fondly called Mother Seton and is stilled referred to in that way. 

 To think a woman did all that she did in the late 1700's and early 1800's is simply amazing. She died in 1821 at age 46.

Visitor center and the Basilica at The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

First statue of Mother Seton erected in the United States. 

Stone House - The original part of the house was from the door and included the two windows to the right and housed 16 people in four rooms and had been constructed in 1750. 

A couple of the rooms in the Stone house

Seton Legacy garden

Seton Legacy garden

The following pictures are of the interior of "The White House" which served as the first St. Joseph's house and later as the house for the Sisters of Charity.  

School room

Chapel

Mother Seton's bedroom, next to the Chapel

Sampler done by Elizabeth's sister Catharine, age 7

Mortuary Chapel in St. Joseph's Cemetery

St. Joseph's Cemetery

St. Joseph's Cemetery

Interior of the Basilica

 Mother Seton is buried beneath this altar (the Altar of Relics) in the Basilica

National Fire Academy

at the National Emergency Training Center

Prior to 1979, this property was part of what is now the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, the site of the first parochial schools for girls in the U.S. and eventually Saint Joseph College.  After the college closed, the government purchased the property for the National Fire Academy.

National Fallen Firefighters Chapel

National Fallen Firefighters Memorial

National Fallen Firefighters Memorial

9/11 Memorial:  To Lift a Nation

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

October 21 - 23, 2013

Being in Gettysburg, walking and/or driving around the battlefields and seeing a quiet, bucolic landscape is mind-boggling to think of what happened here in the Civil War.  The Battle of Gettysburg raged on for three days, July 1 - 3, 1863,  and was the war's bloodiest battle with 51,000 casualties (killed, wounded, captured, or missing).  Although the war continued for another two years, many consider this battle the turning point of the war.  During the four years of the war about 620,000 soldiers and sailors died, which was just under two percent of the population. 

The first five pictures are from the Gettysburg Cyclorama which brings Pickett's Charge to life.  Pickett's Charge was the climax of the Battle of Gettysburg.  The Cyclorama is a 377-foot circular painting by 42-feet high, painted by Paul Phillippoteaux and five assistants in 1884.  Along with sound, lighting and life size objects in the foreground, one is immersed in the battle with a 3-D effect.  

Barn at the McPherson Farm, buildings on the farm were used as a hospital by the Confederates.  Just to the west of this barn is where the Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863.

Reynolds Woods

Oak Hill

Eternal Light Peace Memorial on Oak Hill

July 1 - A large apple orchard was on the southern slope of Oak Hill.  The hill's elevation allowed Confederate artillery to fire at Union forces on Seminary and McPherson ridges.  After a fierce fight, the Confederates succeeded in forcing the Union troops to abandon Oak Hill.

Virginia Memorial, Gen. Robert E. Lee on his horse, Traveller.  The statues at the base represent people who left their jobs to join the Confederate Army - a professional man, a mechanic, an artist, a boy, a businessman, a farmer and a youth.

Ready, Aim, Fire!!!

Little Round Top, July 2, 1863, the Union Army succeeded in defending this hill which was on high ground and gave the Union forces a sweeping view to the north and west

Little Round Top

The Trostle Barn, where Union Major Gen. Daniel Sickles made his headquarters.  Sickles was quite controversial as a general, maybe because prior to the war he was a politician.  There are some who believe that had the Union lost at the battle of Gettysburg, it would have been because of Sickles.  He continued his political career after the war and he did redeem himself several years later when he introduced a bill to create Gettysburg National Military Park.

Sachs Bridge, built in 1852, near Gettysburg.  It was used by 

both Union and Confederate Armies during the Civil War.

Marsh River as seen from inside Sachs bridge.

Interior of Sachs bridge

The Pennsylvania Memorial, the largest state monument in the park

Adams County Library, Gettysburg

Adams County Courthouse, Gettysburg, built in 1858.   During the Battle of Gettysburg the building served as both a command post and as a hospital.

In great deeds something abides,

On great fields something stays.

Forms change and pass; bodies disappear;

but spirits linger . . .

And generations that know us not

and that we know not of,

heart-drawn to see where and by whom

great things were suffered and done for them,

shall come to this deathless field,

to ponder and dream.

Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

"Spirits Linger," Gettysburg, October 3, 1889