The Origin of Mother’s Day
Did you know that there are more calls made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year? It’s true! Across the US, phone companies deal with the highest volume of calls on Mother’s Day.1
It makes sense. After all, Mother’s Day is a celebration of our most important people – the women who gave us life.
As far as historians can tell, celebrating motherhood dates back to the Greeks and Romans. It is a tradition that has imbued our culture for millennia. And today the roots of this holiday intertwine with our own history.
The first record of Mother’s Day, as it is celebrated in the United States, dates back to an era just before the Civil War. Ann Reeves Jarvis began organizing Mothers’ Day Work Clubs to help young mothers care for their children. From child-rearing skills to hygiene to medications, these clubs provided all the basic essentials for new moms.
As rumblings of Civil War grew louder, the club’s purpose transitioned from supporting moms to maintaining friendship and unity at any cost. After all, many of the moms had sons on both sides of that war.
That bond saw them through the war. They nursed soldiers on both sides, offering their compassion, and ultimately saving the sons of countless mothers.
When the war finally ended, Ann re-christened the Work Clubs to “Mothers Friendship Day”, a celebration to heal the communities torn apart by this war.
When Ann passed in 1905, it was the second Sunday of May. Over the next several years, Ann’s daughter, Anna, worked to make that day in May one that all children would use to honor their mothers’ sacrifices. And in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made it so.
Now, over a century later, we have perhaps forgotten the history of this day, but not its spirit.
So, in the spirit of friendship and compassion, I would like to wish you a wonderful Mother’s Day from everyone here at Wealth Advisors!
