St. Elizabeth Parish began back in 1891 with the assignment of the first pastor, Fr. L.A. Dutto. Over the course of the next several years, the parish grew to the point where they could afford to build a church. The first St. Elizabeth church, located on Fairland Place, was dedicated in July of 1913. It served as home for the parish until a new church was built in 1969 at its current location on Florence Avenue. Currently, St. Elizabeth is the spiritual home of over 300 families, as well as supporting a Pre-K through Grade 6 elementary school.

Elizabeth was born in 1207 in the area of Pressburg, Hungary.  She was the daughter of Andrew II, the king of Hungary, and his wife Gertrude.  At age four, Elizabeth was sent by her parents to Thuringia, an area of central Germany, to become the wife of Hermann II, the son of a wealthy landowner and political figure named Hermann I of Thuringia.  Arranged marriages were quite common in this day and age, and the marriage of Elizabeth to Hermann II would help form a friendly alliance between Hungary and Central Germany.

In December of 1216, Hermann II, to whom Elizabeth was to be married, died.  She was then betrothed to Hermann I’s second son, Ludwig, whom she married in 1221.  Elizabeth was 14 at the time she married and Ludwig was 21.  By all accounts, theirs was a very happy marriage.  Both were quite religious and worked diligently to provide for the poor and needy in their area.  Specifically, Elizabeth built a 28-bed hospital below their castle in Wartburg where she personally attended to the sick and dying.

In 1227, Ludwig started out on the 6^th Crusade with the German Emperor Frederick II to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim occupation.  However, while on this crusade, he died on September 11^th, thereby devastating Elizabeth.  Tradition holds that Elizabeth, upon learning of her husband’s death, cried out, “The world with all its joys is now dead to me.”
Shortly after Ludwig’s death, Elizabeth and a few of her companions began the journey of completely renouncing all worldly possessions in order to serve the poor in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi.  She arranged for the care of her three children with her extended family, and on Good Friday, 1228 she entered the Franciscan Order in Eisenach, Germany.  That summer she built and opened a Franciscan hospital in Marburg, Germany and, as was her custom, worked tirelessly to care for the sick and diseased.  For three years she served in this capacity until her death in 1231.  She was only 24.