According to the calendar hanging in my office, May is both Mental Health Month and Employee Health and Fitness Month. Here at the Wayne Township Board of Supervisors, we pay attention to both of these causes to reduce stress, build relationships, and encourage healthy self-esteem activities.
For example, our internal ARMM committee (Active Relationships: Motivation and Morale) is celebrating Mother’s Day (May 12th) this month by inviting all mothers and mother figures here to join us all. Ask them to bring a photo celebrating their special relationship. In some way.
As a lover of history, I looked back at my previous Voice of the Township column on Mother’s Day and thought it was worth revisiting for several reasons. Chief among them is that the day celebrating motherhood was started by three different women out of her three. There are three different reasons for different regions of our country.
An early Mother’s Day event took place on the second Sunday in May 1877 in Albion, Michigan, about 100 miles north of Fort Wayne. That day, Juliet Calhoun Blakely stood up and finished preaching in the church after the pro-temperance pastor was installed. Too distraught over his son’s drinking. Mrs Blakely’s sons were so moved by her gesture that they vowed to return to Albion every year to honor their mother, and urged others to honor her mother on that day as well.
Another pioneer in the effort to establish Mother’s Day was Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the lyrics to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. After the Civil War, Mrs. Howe began the peace movement. She started her Mother’s Day of Peace in Boston in 1870, and by 1873 this celebration had spread to her 18 cities in the United States and was held on the second Sunday in June. This was another precursor to modern Mother’s Day celebrations.
The woman most influential in creating Mother’s Day was Anna Jarvis. She was the daughter of Ann Jarvis, who was instrumental in establishing Mother’s Friendship Day in 1868 to reunite families separated during the Civil War. Ann Jarvis, from Grafton, West Virginia, wanted to expand her Mother’s Friendship Day into an annual memorial event for her mother, but before this celebration became popular, she died in 1905.
Anna Jarvis, who moved to Philadelphia, continued her mother’s cause. Her small service was held on May 12, 1907 at her home church, Andrew’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, and her first formal service was on May 10 of the following year. It was held in the same church. Her Mother’s Day was declared a public holiday by the state of West Virginia. 1910 and other states soon followed.
On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. And so on May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the nation’s first Mother’s Day. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized a stamp commemorating the holiday. Grafton Church, where the first celebration took place, is no longer in operation as a church and is now an International Mother’s Day Shrine and a National Historic Landmark.
In later years, Anna Jarvis became disillusioned with the commercial nature of Mother’s Day. In her opinion, what started as a religious observance honoring her mother has evolved into a commercial holiday.
We remember our mothers and mother figures and are grateful for the care and concern they showed for our well-being throughout their lives. Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours.
