Mother's Day

Did you know that Mother's Day is Sunday? It kind of snuck up on me! I thought it would be fun to take a closer look at Mother's Day-since it started right here in my state!

We all know that Anna Jarvis founded Mother's Day to honor her own mother, Anna Marie Jarvis. The Jarvis' lived at Grafton, WV.



The story goes that Anna's Mother, Mrs. Jarvis, was teaching a Sunday school class on mother's in the bible and ended the class with a small prayer,
"I hope that someone, sometime will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is
entitled to it."

That prayer stuck with Anna and when her mother passed away in 1905 Anna swore that her Mother's prayer would come true.

She started a ceaseless campaign in 1907 to make the holiday a national one. That year, on the anniversary of her mother's death, she went to her mother's church Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, WV and passed out over 500 white carnations to the mothers at the church, since carnations were Mrs. Jarvis' favorite flower. This turned into the tradition of wearing a white carnation to honor a deceased mother and a red one to honor a living mother.

In 1911, every state of the union of was celebrating Mother's Day, although it didn't become official until 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson made it a National Holiday to be celebrated on the second Sunday of the month of May.

In the end, Anna was sorry for starting the holiday because it had become too commericalized and not what she intended at all.


At my house, the tradition is flowers. I always get my Mom a hanging basket of her favorite flower, tuberous begonias. So what is your Mother's Day traditions? Do you want flowers or jewelry? Or are you like me and just request a day of peace-no bickering or fighting? No laundry that HAS to be done? We want to know.



And for all of the mothers out there-this is for you.