You might (or might not) remember that the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. The role of his may mom, Helena, may be less familiar.
Constantine took over for his dad, one of the four emperors who were jointly governing under a system devised by Diocletian (yeah, I probably do write too much about him, but he is the coolest, most overlooked of all Roman emperors). Unfortunately, not every joint emperor was as high-minded as Diocletian, so they got petty and bickered and quarreled and slaughtered tens of thousands of common people in their wars to eliminate each other. Constantine, famously raising the chi-rho symbol of the Christians at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge ("In hoc signo vinces"), consolidated the Empire under his command and recognized Christianity as the one true religion. He did not require all Romans to be baptized (which was good thinking), but he did use state resources to advance the Church (which probably set us on the wrong path; oh well, it's water over the dam now).
His mom also became a Christian, using her personal fortune to establish churches and convents. She also went on a pilgrimage to Palestine, where she oversaw the destruction of the Temple of Venus that Hadrian had constructed on Calvary (site of Jesus' crucifixion, also called Golgotha) and the construction of a basilica there. She lived for a time among the nuns, working at the most menial of chores. And according to some accounts of her life, she hunted for the cross on which Jesus had been executed. I've read that three possible crosses were identified, from which the One True Cross was revealed through miraculous healings. But that's one of those things you've got to take on faith, and I don't always like to mix the historically sound (i.e. Helena was baptized, went to the Holy Land, visited the shrines, lived humbly in a convent) with the legendary.
She made it back to her son's capital, Nicomedia, before dying of natural causes at age eighty.
Good woman + good deeds = saint
Good woman + good deeds + good connections = canonized saint
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