by Kelly Hawes
Pharos Tribune mananging editor
May 10, 2008 10:50 pm
—
Today, we celebrate mothers. Perhaps we get up early to make Mom breakfast, or perhaps we buy her a box of chocolates. Maybe we just send her a card or give her a call.
Whatever we do, we do it not because some advertising agency concocted another reason for men to go shopping. We do it to acknowledge the contribution mothers have made to our lives.
According to Wikipidia, the American observance of Mother’s Day began began with a woman named Ann Jarvis, who organized what she called Mothers’ Work Days to improve sanitation in 19th century Appalachia. When the Civil War began, she organized women to improve sanitary conditions for both sides, and after the war, she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.
In 1870, Julia Ward Howe picked up on the idea and began to crusade for a mother’s day for peace. Reacting to the carnage of both the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, she wrote a Mother’s Day proclamation calling on women to rise up.
“Our husbands will not come to us, reeking of carnage, for caresses and applause,” she wrote. “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.”
Howe’s idea never caught on, but when Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, Anna, started a crusade to begin a memorial day for women. The first such day was celebrated 100 years ago, on May 10, 1908, in the church where the elder Jarvis had taught Sunday school. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, W.Va., is now the International Mother’s Day Shrine.
This time, the idea began to spread, and by 1914, President Woodrow Wilson had declared the first national Mother’s Day.
Within 9 years, though, Anna Jarvis began to regret what she had started. She spoke out against what she saw as the over-commercialization of the holiday.
Now, Wikipidia credits IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, with the estimate that Americans will spend more than $4 billion on Mother’s Day gifts. The same article indicates that such presents account for nearly 8 percent of the jewelry industry’s annual revenues and that Americans will spend more than $3.5 billion taking their moms out to eat on Mother’s Day.
Of course, there’s no argument that Mom is worth the expense.
My own mother was always my greatest supporter. She would stand by me even if no one else did.
My son has been fortunate enough to have that same kind of mother. He might not always realize it. He might get aggravated now and then when she insists that he comb his hair or when she makes sure he does his homework before he heads out to play.
But I’m sure he recognizes that he’d be lost without her.
Many of us have stories about Mom staying up late to make that dozen cookies we forgot to tell her about or to sew those patches on our Boy Scout uniforms.
We remember the lessons she taught us and the love she gave us.
And we take a few moments today to thank her for that.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Kelly Hawes is managing editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5155 or kelly.hawes@pharostribune.com
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