Honoring Mother’s Day… A Brief History Lesson

Sunday May 12th is the day in which we will celebrate Mother’s Day this year. Have you ever wondered how Mother’s Day came to be, or why we celebrate it on the second Sunday of May? Well, here’s a little history lesson for you! Way back when, in ancient Greece, the people celebrated Rhea, the Mother of the Gods each spring. In what is now Turkey, the people celebrated Cybele, the Mother Goddess whose realm was the Earth’s mountains and caverns, natural surroundings and wild animals. She came to be known as “Mother of the Animals”. Later, around the 16th Century, as the Ancient Roman religious and cultural traditions in Europe and England gave way to Christianity, these celebrations became a part of Laetare Sunday, or the fourth Sunday of Lent. This day was used to honor the Virgin Mother Mary, and the people’s “Mother Church”, the church in which they were baptized. They would decorate their Mother Church with flowers, jewels, and gifts. Then, in 1870, it was suggested by Julia Ward Howe (she wrote the lyrics to the Battle Hymn of The Republic), that Mother’s Day be a time to celebrate individual mothers. She was so heartbroken at the awful carnage and death of the Civil War, that she called on all mother’s to come together and protest their sons killing the sons of other mothers. She wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Part of this read, ““We women of one country Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”  How suggested that the July 4th holiday be instead celebrated as Mother’s Day, but eventually June 2nd was the day designated for the celebration of mothers. In 1873 women’s groups in 18 North American cities observed this new Mother’s holiday.  Howe would finance the celebration each year. The annual celebrations went on for some time, but eventually fizzled out after Howe stopped supporting it financially. This is where Anna Reeves Jarvis comes in. In West Virginia, Reeves was the leader of a women’s group who began to celebrate an adaptation of the holiday Mrs. Howe had begun. They called it Mother’s Friendship Day, and it was meant to reunite families and neighbors that had been divided between the Union and Confederate sides of the Civil War. Anna Reeves Jarvis passed away in 1905. Her daughter, Anna M. Jarvis was very close to her mother, and as a tribute to her, she pursuaded her mother’s church to celebrate a day to honor mother’s on the second Sunday of May, the anniversary of her mother’s death. Her hope was that this would be a time for children to appreciate their mother’s more while they are alive. She dreamed that this day would strengthen family bonds by increasing love and respect. The first Mother’s Day proclamation was issued by the governor of West Virginia. Oklahoma also celebrated that year, and by 1911 every state was celebrating Mother’s Day. In May of 1913, all federal officials were required to wear a white carnation on Mother’s Day, and in 1914, the second Sunday of May was officially designated as Mother’s Day. It was President Woodrow Wilson who issued the first proclamation declaring Mother’s Day as a National Holiday. The carnation is known the official flower of Mother’s Day. The white carnation is meant to symbolize a mother who has passed, and the red to symbolize the mother who is living. The white carnation was Anna Reeves Jarvis’ favorite flower. So… May 12th 2013, make sure you take some time to do something nice for the mother in your life. Whether it is your own mother, your mother in-law, the mother of your children, or your grandmother, let’s take the time to honor the women who were it not for, we simply, would not be.