Seton Shrine Young Interpreters Bring History to Life for Vsitors, by Danielle Bean

EMMITSBURG (OSV News) — Visitors who walk the grounds of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg often report feeling like they’ve stepped into a history book.

That’s no accident.

Just ask Nikki Robinson, 12, who has spent three years in the shrine’s Junior History Interpreters program. Nikki portrays an actual person in costume, participates in period activities and is there to show — and not just tell — what it was like to be a student in the early 1800s at the first free Catholic school for girls run by an order of religious sisters in the early United States.

“I love learning about history and knowing that I’m walking in the footsteps of Mother Seton and her students,” Nikki said. “The beginning part of the program is where we find out who we are and we get to research and learn what we can about that person. So, getting to know that person, who is kind of lost to history, and bringing them back to the present is really cool.” …