Mother's Day in Modern Times 

In 1872 Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, was perhaps the first to suggest Mother's Day as a celebration of peace after the civil war.

The first Mother's Day, though, was organized by Miss Anna Jarvis (1864-1948.) It was celebrated on May 10, 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia and in Philadelphia.

These two cities were chosen because Miss Jarvis’ mother, Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis, had taught Sunday School in Grafton and died in Philadelphia. Mrs. Jarvis had tried to establish “Mother's Friendship Days” as a way to heal the scars left by the war. After she died in 1905, Anna and her sister missed their mother very much, and Anna asked that a special church service be held in her memory, on the fifth anniversary of her death.

At the church service in Philadelphia, Anna Jarvis placed jars of white carnations on the altar. Carnations were her mother's favourite flower, and Anna chose white carnations to represent the purity and blessedness of motherhood . She gave a carnation to each person as they left the church, so they would remember this special day.

Later, red carnations were also incorporated into the rituals and symbols of Mother's Day. A red carnation was a sign that one's mother was living, while a white one meant that she had passed on, or that she was missed because she lived far away.

In 1910, West Virginia was the first state to officially mark Mother's Day. Mother's Day went national in the US in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson declared it to be a holiday. It was to be celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of every May. Other countries that celebrate Mother's Day on the 2nd Sunday of May are Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey.

Unfortunately, while Mother's Day had originally been intended as a day of spirituality and celebration of our mothers, it soon became very commercial, like many holidays in our times. Gone were the visits to the mother church, gone the hand picked violets and wild flowers of English custom, and the meaning of the carnations. These were replaced with the buying and selling of goods, and even with efforts to use Mother's Day to raise funds for various causes.

Anna Jarvis spent the rest of her life trying to shut down commercialized Mother's Day celebrations, and was even arrested when she protested at one event. Ironically, this woman who had worked so hard to honour mothers never married and never had children of her own. She died alone and destitute. She had lost both her home and her health, and some friends payed for her to stay at a sanitorium where she was cared for until she passed on.