The History of Motherâ?Ts Day

The History of Motherâ?Ts Day

The History of Mother?Ts Day
by Patricia Chadwick
All across the world, more than 46 countries honor mothers with a special day, but not all nations celebrate on the same day. We honor mothers with cards, candy, flowers and dinner out. But have you ever considered how this became a legal holiday in the United States?

Mother?Ts day was first suggested in the United States by Julia Ward Howe, writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. She suggested that this day be dedicated to peace. Miss Howe organized Mother?Ts Day meetings in Boston every year.

In 1877, Mrs. Juliet Calhoun Blakely inadvertently set Mother?Ts Day in motion. On Sunday, May 11, 1877, which was Mrs. Blakely?Ts birthday, the pastor of her Methodist Episcopal Church left the pulpit abruptly, distraught over the behavior of his son. Mrs. Blakely stepped to the pulpit to take over the remainder of the service and called for other mothers to join her.

Mrs. Blakely?Ts two sons were so touched by her gesture that they vowed to return to their hometown of Albion, Mich., every year to mark their mother?Ts birthday and to pay tribute to her. In ad***ion, the two brothers urged business associates and those they met while traveling as salesman to honor their mothers on the second Sunday of May. They also urged the Methodist Episcopal Church in Albion to set aside the second Sunday of each May to honor all mothers, especially their own.

While there were local celebrations honoring mothers in the late 1800?Ts, the recognition of Mother's Day as a U.S. national holiday was largely due to the efforts of Anna Jarvis. Annâ?Ts mother, Mrs. Anna M. Jarvis, had been instrumental in developing ?oMothers Friendship Day? which was part of the healing process of the Civil War. In honor of her mother, Miss Jarvis wanted to set aside a day to honor all mothers, living and dead.

In 1907, Miss Anna began a campaign to establish a national Mother?Ts Day. She persuaded her mother?Ts church in Grafton, W.Va., to celebrate Mother?Ts day on the second anniversary of her mother?Ts death, the second Sunday of May. By the next year, Mother?Ts Day was also celebrated in her own city of Philadelphia.

Miss Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, evangelists, businessmen, and politicians in their crusade to establish a national Mother?Ts Day.

This campaign was a success. By 1911, Mother?Ts Day was celebrated in almost every state in the Union. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made the official announcement proclaiming Mother?Ts Day as a national holiday to be held each year on the second Sunday of May.

The one-woman crusade of Anna Jarvis is often overlooked in history books because women during the early 1900s were engaged in so many other reform efforts, but it is likely that these other reforms helped pave the way for Anna Jarvis *****cceed in her campaign for Mother?Ts Day.

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Quotations for Mother's Day
"Nobody knows of the work it makes
To keep the home together.
Nobody knows of the steps it takes,
Nobody knows-but Mother."
-Anonymous
"Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me?
-Nancy Thayer
"Making the decision to have a child-it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."
-Elizabeth Stone
"All I am or can be I owe to my angel Mother."
-Abraham Lincoln
"Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground."
-Zora Neale Hurston
"Who ran to help be when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother."
-Ann Taylor
"That best academy, a mother's knee."
-James Russell Lowell
"Is my mother my friend? I would have to say, first of all she is my Mother, with a capital 'M'; she's something sacred to me. I love her dearly...yes, she is also a good friend, someone I can talk openly with if I want to."
-Sophia Loren

"Mother and Child" by Mary Cassatt
"God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers."
-Jewish Proverb
"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."
-Lin Yutang
"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."
-Honore de Balzac
"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."
-George Washington
"By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"Children Playing at the Beach" by Mary Cassatt
"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."
-Henry Ward Beecher
"Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."
-Abraham Lincoln
"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
-Author Unknown
"Breakfast in Bed" by Mary Cassatt
Richer Than Gold
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be -
I had a mother who read to me.
-Strickland Gillilan
The Child's Caress" by Mary Cassatt
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
-Washington Irving

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