Mothers Day History

This Mothers Day marks the 100th anniversary of Mothers Day. Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mothers Day, would want us to give mothers a white carnation — she felt it signified the purity of a mother's love. Jarvis, who got the Mother's Day idea after her mother said it would be nice if someone created a memorial to mothers. Three years after her mother died in 1905, she organized the first official mother's day service at a church where her mother had spent more than 20 years teaching Sunday school. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church is the official shrine to mothers around the world. On Sunday, the shrine will celebrate the 100th anniversary, giving each mother attending a special service a white carnation. The shrine also serves as a "reminder to the accomplishments of these women and to the issues mothers still deal with today, trying to do the balancing act of being everything to everyone," According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 83 million mothers in the United States. Jarvis' devotion to and her fierce defense of Mother's Day is tied to the feeling that "a certain era was passing and mothers like her mother were becoming fewer". Jarvis' mother Ann was a community activist who worked to heal the divisions in north-central West Virginia following the Civil War. "She was a soft-spoken, gentle woman, but she could convince the devil to give up his pitch fork." West Virginia became the first state to recognize Mother's Day in 1910. President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution in 1914 marking the second Sunday in May a nationwide observance. “Mother's Day was meant to be — and still is — a celebration of a nineteenth-century ideal of motherhood, when mothers were supposed to dedicate themselves completely to nurturing their children and making a cozy, safe home," So, to all the Mothers out there, Happy Mothers Day.