Mother’s Day has its origins in Ancient Greece. America's third largest card-sending holiday was not created by the greeting card industry as is rumored. Mothers Day began as a spring celebration honor the Mother of the Gods, Rhea. In and around the 17th Century, the celebration became a day in England when early Christians honored Mary, the mother of Christ. The day, Mothering Sunday, honored both Mothers and the Church, until today when it is acknowledged on the 4th Sunday after Lent. By the 1600s when the British Colonists settled on America's shores, Mothering Sunday fell by the wayside until the middle of the 19th Century. Activist/abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, author of the famed BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC written in downtown DC at the Willard Hotel came up with the idea of a Mothers Day of Peace. The date somewhere around the middle of the 19th Century, the year 1870. Howe, a participant in the Women's Suffragate movement, declaredm in what is believed to be the original declaration of MOTHERS DAY in the United States of America, June 2 would be a MOTHERS DAY FOR PEACE. For the next decade, MOTHERS DAY FOR PEACE was celebrated as envisioned by Howe but in a way unlike the accepted celebration of MOTHERS DAY as it is celebrated today. Howe envisioned MOTHERS DAY FOR PEACE to be Mothers Uniting Against War.
Anna Jarvis was the architect of MOTHERS DAY as we know it today. Anna was the daughter of an Appalachian homemaker. Anna's mother Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis inspired her daughter with her example of working to improve post civil war relationships between the south and the north. Jarvis, a graduate of Wheeling West Virginia's Female Seminary taight for a bit before returning home to care for her mom. Ann Marie was ill. Ann Marie died in 1905. Brokenhearted Anna Jarvis devoted her remaining days on earth to honoring the sanctity of motherhood - dead and alive. Anna began a letter writing effort to everyone she could, writing them about her idea to honor Mothers. Annas efforts took seed close to home. A neighboring church in Grafton West Virginia, the Andrews Methodist Church, and began the first Mothers Day celebration. Anna had made her mark on them years earlier. Anna taught Sunday School classes at this church for 20 years. Eventually word of the Mothers Day observance made it in to the Oval Office. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, declared MOTHERS DAY to be an official American holiday celebrated each and every year on the second Sunday in May.
Anna died without children of her own to honor her incredible accomplishment. And to set the record straight, children have been crafting Mothers Day cards long before Hallmark began making commercial MOTHERS DAY cards. That was in 1920. To this very day, the best card a mother can receive is the one handmade by her child.
Anna Jarvis was the architect of MOTHERS DAY as we know it today. Anna was the daughter of an Appalachian homemaker. Anna's mother Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis inspired her daughter with her example of working to improve post civil war relationships between the south and the north. Jarvis, a graduate of Wheeling West Virginia's Female Seminary taight for a bit before returning home to care for her mom. Ann Marie was ill. Ann Marie died in 1905. Brokenhearted Anna Jarvis devoted her remaining days on earth to honoring the sanctity of motherhood - dead and alive. Anna began a letter writing effort to everyone she could, writing them about her idea to honor Mothers. Annas efforts took seed close to home. A neighboring church in Grafton West Virginia, the Andrews Methodist Church, and began the first Mothers Day celebration. Anna had made her mark on them years earlier. Anna taught Sunday School classes at this church for 20 years. Eventually word of the Mothers Day observance made it in to the Oval Office. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, declared MOTHERS DAY to be an official American holiday celebrated each and every year on the second Sunday in May.
Anna died without children of her own to honor her incredible accomplishment. And to set the record straight, children have been crafting Mothers Day cards long before Hallmark began making commercial MOTHERS DAY cards. That was in 1920. To this very day, the best card a mother can receive is the one handmade by her child.
