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Mother's Day, an American institution. How did it get started?
The ancient Greeks celebrated a holiday in honor of the mother of the gods, Rhea. The Romans, in turn, celebrated a festival in honor of Cybele, the goddess mother from March 22 through March 25th. Brigid (later St. Brigid), was honored by the early Britains and the Celts on the European continent. This celebration was held in spring and was related to the ewes first milk. In 17th century Britain the fourth Sunday in lent was called Mothering Sunday. Servants and apprenticed tradesmen would journey home to visit their mothers on that day. One gift they brought to their mothers was a fruitcake or pastry called "mothering cake." The holiday slowly died out, however.
In America the earliest known reference to motherhood was around 1858 called Mothers' Work Days (it is plural Mothers')instituted by Anna Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia. But we owe the true expression of Mother's Day to Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic"). Disgusted by the carnage of our Civil War, Ms. Howe attempted to introduce a manifesto at an international peace conference in London and Paris and in 1872 began promoting her "Mother's Day for Peace" to honor peace and motherhood together with womanhood in general. These celebrations were held in many American cities and towns but eventually over the years, died out.
Anna M. Jarvis (1864 - 1948), the daughter of Anna Reeves Jarvis lived in Philadelphia in 1890 and initiated a drive to establish a day to celebrate motherhood. Through her persistence, by May 10, 1908, the church of St. Andrew's in Grafton, West Virginia held a service on a Sunday to honor all mothers living and dead. That same year John Wanamaker of Philadelphia joined the celebrations. Curiously, red carnations came to symbolize a living mother, white carnations, which represented sweetness, purity and endurance of a mother's love were chosen as a symbol of a mother who has died.
The first official Mother's Day procalamtion was issued by the government of West Virginia in 1910. Oklahoma joined that same year and by 1911 most every state had some sort of observance for that special day. Finally the House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution in May of 1913 requesting that the President and all officials of the government wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. Congress then passed a joint resolution on May 8, 1914 designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. President Woodrow Wilson issued the first proclamation making Mother's Day an official national holiday.
In the words of Anna May Jarvis (who had quarreled with her mother just before she died, and was remorseful at her passing)....chose the carnation as a Mother's Day flower. "The whiteness of the blossom represents the purity of motherhood, the calyx symbolizes life, the fragrance is like the incense of a mother's prayers, its wide field of growth exemplifies the boundless charity of a mother's love, its enduring characteristics her fidelity. And, the crowning touch of all, the carnation's habit of folding its petals to its heart instead of dropping them, illustrates the undying quality of a mother's love."
A mother is central to the core of the family unit. She is the important part of any family. Poet William Ross Wallace said in 1866, "For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."
Go out and buy your mother a box of chocolates, perfume or give her a bouquet of flowers. And don't forget the Mother's Day card!
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