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My Mother's Day Gift for you
A Gift from a friend
A Little History of Mothers Day Celebrations To Visit Home for the Holidays at Taylor Ridge
I adoped this because
it reminded me so
very much of My Mother.
On wash day,
I would see her
hanging out the wash
with her dress
blowing in the wind,
one of my beautiful memories.
In honour of mothers were first held in the spring of ancient Greece. They paid tribute to Rhea, the Mother of all the Gods. During the 17th century, England honoured mothers on the fourth Sunday of Lent naming it "Mothering Sunday".
In the United States, Julia Ward Howe suggested the idea of Mother's Day in 1872. Howe, who also wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, saw Mother's Day as being dedicated to peace.
Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia is given credit bringing about the official celebration of Mother's Day. She wanted to establish a holiday in remembrance of her mother, who had died in 1905 and who had, in the late 1800's, tried to establish "Mother's Friendship Days" as a way to try and heal the scars of the Civil War.
Jarvis held a ceremony two years after her mother died, in Grafton, West Virginia, to honour her. She was so moved by the how the proceedings went, that she began a massive campaign to adopt a formal holiday to honour mothers. West Virginia became the first state in 1910, to recognize Mother's Day. One year later, nearly every state had officially marked the day. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed Mother's Day as a national holiday and was to be held on the second Sunday of May.
But Jarvis' celebration and accomplishment soon turned bitter for her. The commercialization of the holiday, during the 1923 Mother's Day festival she filed a lawsuit to stop and was even arrested for disturbing the peace at a war mothers' convention, where women sold white carnations, Jarvis' symbol for mothers, to raise money. In her statement, "This is not what I intended, I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit!"
Jarvis told a reporter shortly before her death, in 1948, that she was sorry she had ever started Mother's Day. She spoke these words in a nursing home, and on every Mother's Day, her room had been filled with cards from all over the world.
Today, because and despite Jarvis' efforts, many celebrations of Mother's Days are held throughout the world. Although they do not all fall at the same time, countries as Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia and Belgium also celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May.
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