The obvious answer is: Not here! The second Sunday in May is the day that President Woodrow Wilson designated as the official day to recognize our mothers, and so it has remained. But there is a lot more to the history than just that.
In Grafton, WV, Anna Jarvis started her campaign to honor her mother in 1905, the year her own mother died. It was her intention that it should be a national celebration to honor individual motherhood; that seems simple enough but it became quite complicated.
The first official celebration was held in 1908 in St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton. Anna Jarvis’ stated purpose was to honor the work her mother had done as a peacemaker when she delivered care to wounded soldiers of both sides during the Civil War. She was anxious to see the idea spread across the country as she proclaimed a mother as “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world.”
In 1908 Jarvis lobbied Congress to formalize her project but the lawmakers, in their infinite wisdom, rejected the proposal on the “logical” grounds that by so doing, they would have to establish a “Mother-in-law’s Day.” And we thought only our current legislators argue about trivia! Undaunted, Anna persisted and by 1910 all the states were recognizing it and, even the President took only four more years to formalize the day.
If you look back in history the redoubtable Anna Jarvis is the modern mother of the celebration but the idea of celebrating motherhood goes back as far as the Greeks and the Romans. The National Mother’s Day Shrine is located in Grafton and in 1912, Jarvis secured trademarks for “the second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day.”
She should have quit while she was ahead but in no time at all commercial interests had seized upon her idea. So incensed was she that profit would be made over honoring mothers that she tried to rescind the whole idea and abolish the day. Additionally, it came to be called “Mothers’ Day,” with the apostrophe indicating all mothers, not just your individual one.
Instead of expressing love and affection for mother, (according to Jarvis) everyone began buying candy, sending flowers, and gifts. Hallmark cards led the market in 1920 in the production of Mother’s Day cards and soon every commercial interest began to exploit the day. Taking Mom out to dinner was a later invention but try getting a reservation at the last minute today. Now more flowers are sold for the second Sunday in May than any day other than Easter.
Back in the 1920s, clearly, action had to be taken to remove commercialism from the day, so Ms. Jarvis arranged and led boycotts against the day she had created. In 1923 she crashed a candy maker convention in Philadelphia and two years later was arrested for disturbing the peace when she broke up a confab of American War Mothers who were selling carnations to raise money.Apparently, Ms. Jarvis thought her trademark included flowers.
Ironically, she never married nor had children, living with one of her few surviving sisters. She eventually was committed to the Marshall Square Sanitarium in West Chester, PA where she died in 1948. Her grand idea survived her machinations against it and today Mothers’ Day is celebrated in countless countries around the world.
I mention this only to remind ourselves of the importance of this day, not the sadness it brought to its founder. Rest in Peace, Anna Jarvis.
Just as there are no perfect children, there are no mothers without blemish. That, notwithstanding, does not diminish the significance of this day. As I was told when my own mother died, “You have lost the only person who would always love you, no matter what.” If only that sense of loving commitment were found in us all, then how much sadness could be averted!
Happy day in Heaven, Mother. These twenty-four years later, I still miss you.
– Hayden Hollingsworth
