Good morning, it’s May 9. It is the anniversary of a presidential proclamation – this one issued in 1914 by Woodrow Wilson - calling on Americans to display the U.S. flag on the second Sunday in May “as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”
Let’s just get this out of the way: Mother’s Day was not started by the greeting card companies. It was started by a woman named Anna Jarvis, partly in homage to her own mother, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis, who in the border state of West Virginia organized mothers clubs devoted to the care and feeding of wounded Civil War soldiers — both Confederate and Union.
After her death in 1905, her daughter Anna threw herself into the cause of making Mother’s Day a national holiday. In this she was successful, partly because U.S. president were quick to embrace the cause. And why not? Most modern U.S. chief executives have been exceedingly close to their mothers, strong women going hand-in-hand with strong men.
Read Full Article »
