{"id":107275,"date":"2021-06-03T09:21:53","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T13:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/?p=107275"},"modified":"2021-07-20T13:39:21","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T17:39:21","slug":"the-intertwined-lives-of-the-presidents-daughter-and-st-elizabeth-ann-seton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/es\/the-intertwined-lives-of-the-presidents-daughter-and-st-elizabeth-ann-seton\/","title":{"rendered":"The Intertwined Lives of the President\u2019s Daughter and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Shinkle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luci Baines Johnson gets asked sometimes why she identifies so much with St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, but, she says, that\u2019s the wrong question.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question for me is not why I identify with Elizabeth Ann Seton, but how on earth else could I not?\u201d she says. \u201cShe resonates with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a distinguished life that has largely been in the public eye, Johnson has identified as many things. She\u2019s the youngest daughter of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. She\u2019s a Catholic convert, wife and mother. She\u2019s a successful businesswoman and philanthropist. And now she\u2019s leading a fundraising campaign for the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Md.<\/p>\n

The Shrine is in the midst of a year-long commemoration of the 200th<\/sup> anniversary of the death of Mother Seton, the first native-born American saint. Among the activities will be \u201cThe Seton Family Treasures,\u201d an exhibit of rarely seen Seton artifacts opening July 1. The Shrine has also launched \u201cSeeker to Saint,\u201d<\/a> a series of monthly videos examining aspects of Seton\u2019s life and spirituality. The first video is titled: \u201cI Am a Mother\u201d<\/a> and explores the love and devotion that this saint had for her five children. The videos will be distributed by Catholic News Service.<\/p>\n

As chairwoman of the Shrine\u2019s National Leaders Council, Johnson is helping to raise money that will fund a renovated and expanded museum, an expansion of the Shrine\u2019s Seeds of Hope program of retreats for the poor and other programs. Johnson was asked to get involved after years of working with the Daughters of Charity, a religious order that traces its roots back to Mother Seton<\/p>\n

It was a natural fit. She has experienced triumph and tragedy, joy and heartbreak \u2013 similar to some degree to the real-life experiences of Seton. Through it all, she says she has relied on her deep faith and a devotion to the saint.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want somebody to identify with,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cWe all want to have our religion have a more personal connection for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consider these connections.<\/p>\n

Convert<\/strong><\/p>\n

Raised Episcopalian, Elizabeth Ann Seton converted to Catholicism in 1805 to the surprise and even ire of her extended family.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s father was a member of the Disciples of Christ and her mother was an Episcopalian, the church that Luci Baines Johnson was ultimately raised in. \u201cMy father was the most ecumenical man I ever knew,\u201d she says. \u201cHe would always say, \u2018You understand, when you\u2019re in my position, you need all the help you can get.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In Johnson\u2019s teens, she began looking for something more from her faith, which led her to Catholicism. Her parents supported her search but only asked that she wait until adulthood to make the decision. She converted when she turned 18.<\/p>\n

Wife and mother<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seton had five children before losing her husband to tuberculosis, leaving her to raise the children on her own.<\/p>\n

Johnson had four children before a painful divorce and annulment ended her first marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cDivorce and death are not the same \u2013 I would never claim they are,\u201d she says. \u201cBut divorce is a death of something that you believed in and love and wanted to last forever and ever. And it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt grieved to me to the core of my existence. And so, I went to my faith, which, I think, lots of us do when times are frightening and worrisome and concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1984, five years after the end of her marriage, Johnson wed businessman Ian Turpin, and they remain happily married today. \u201cIf you ask me how long we\u2019ve been married, I\u2019ll always tell you the exact same thing I have said for the last 37 years: Not long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Businesswoman and entrepreneur<\/strong><\/p>\n

The term entrepreneur wasn\u2019t in use in the early 1800s, but Johnson likes to think of Seton as one. As the foundress of a school and then an order of nuns \u2013 the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph\u2019s \u2013 in Emmitsburg, \u201cshe was essentially the founder of a startup,\u201d Johnson says. Before that, she helped her husband, Will, with the family import business as it went through bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

Since Johnson and Turpin were married, they have thrived on raising their family together, as well as the Johnson Family\u2019s business interests and active roles as philanthropists. \u00a0Additionally, they founded a startup of their own, BusinesSuites, a shared office business firm that became one of the largest in the country before it was sold.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she said they experienced turbulence in their business and moved the family back to Texas from Canada where they had been living.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chance that maybe you will lose everything your family has built over many years was very frightening,\u201d she says, just as it was for Seton.<\/p>\n

Unifying force<\/strong><\/p>\n

Johnson was first exposed to the Shrine in Emmitsburg when as a teenager, she dated a young man at nearby Mount St. Mary\u2019s University. She also remembers the excitement of Seton being the first native-born American to be beatified in 1963 and then canonized in 1975.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting your own American-born saint was a big deal,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was an exciting thing, especially when you thought about all of the discrimination that had existed in the United States when John Fitzgerald Kennedy ran for the presidency. It\u2019s hard to measure what that meant to so many young women who were members of the Catholic Church or interested in the Catholic Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, Johnson developed close relationships with the Sisters and Daughters of Charity, who trace their lineage back to Seton and remain committed to serving those in need.<\/p>\n

\u201cMother Seton tried very hard to help us,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cI think, really, what\u2019s especially important is for us to look at how important she felt that people on the margins were and how we need to love them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seton remains a unifying force in the Church, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a Roman Catholic convert, and I\u2019m on the more liberal side of the political spectrum,\u201d she says. \u201cAs an active person in public life, \u00a0I have political differences with some of my fellow Americans. But I believe that respect and responsibility and caring about people living on the margins is something people from every political spectrum can embrace. I also believe it is in giving that we truly receive and a purpose driven life is life\u2019s greatest joy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just looking to do my part to help, and Mother Seton is a great help.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and her National Shrine, please visit <\/em>https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/<\/em><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luci Baines Johnson\u2019s life journey has been marked with connections to the saint<\/p>","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":107278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[3920],"tags":[3923],"class_list":["post-107275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsroom","tag-seeker-to-saint"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Intertwined Lives of the President\u2019s Daughter and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton - Seton Shrine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/es\/the-intertwined-lives-of-the-presidents-daughter-and-st-elizabeth-ann-seton\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"The Intertwined Lives of the President\u2019s Daughter and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton - 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