The "Happy Mother's Day" Story

Happy Mother's Day, from Larry

It was an ordinary day.  Ordinary for many, but for those living in the United States, and perhaps the country where you may live, today is Mother's Day.  Today we honor motherhood which is observed differently throughout the world.  In the United States,

Anna Reeves Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day.

Anna Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia help start Mother' Day when on May 10, 1908 she sent 500 white carnations to Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Graftonin in honor of her late mother Ann.   Anne is usually seen as the "mother" of Mother's Day for creating the movement that led to the eventual proclamation in the United States.  Anna also began Mother's Work Clubs to teach women how to properly care for their children.  These clubs later became a unifying force in a region of the country still divided due to the Civil War.  Then in 1868 she organized "Mothers' Friendship Day" where mothers from both the Union and Confederate sides gathered to promote reconciliation.  It was said that these days were the forerunner of our modern Mother's Day.  Two years later abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe wrote the "Mother's Day Proclamation" which was a call to action that asked mothers to unite in promoting world peace.  She actually called for a "Mother's Peace Day" to be celebrated on June 2 each year.  In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Mary Towles Sasseen and Frank Hering worked to organize a Mother's Day thus giving Frank the name "the father of Mother's Day.  

Julia Ward Howe wrote the "Mother's Day Proclamation"

Then came that day in May of 1908 when Anna sent the flowers to the Methodist church in West Virginia.  Happened to be the same Sunday that thousands flocking to a Wanamaker's store in Philadelphia for a retail event.  Well, Ms. Jarvis, who never married or had children, was so excited about the turnout that she pushed for Mother's Day to be added as a national American holiday.  Four years later states and towns adopted the event as a holiday and finally, in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure naming the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.  Families began celebrating by giving the "Mother" in the family a day off from activities like cooking and household chores.  I have no doubt that retailers and florists pushed for the day to be made a holiday.  Today Mother's Day is celebrated in many nations around the world.  Everywhere from Thailand to Ethiopia families gather around the matriarch of the family in celebration of motherhood.  Then in 1968 Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., hosted a march on Mother's Day in support of underprivileged women and children.  In the 1970s women's groups throughout the USA used Mother's Day as a holiday to highlight the need for equal rights and access to childcare.  Hopefully today you will honor your mother with at least a card or kind words.  Anyway, where would we be without all the mothers in the world?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.