Published: May 11, 2008 02:09 am            

Mother’s Day celebration reaches 100th anniversary

GRAFTON — On this 100th anniversary of Mother’s Day, the woman credited with creating one of the world’s most celebrated holidays wouldn’t want flowers, candy or gifts.

In fact, before she died in 1948, Anna Jarvis fought against the increasing commercialization of Mother’s Day because she felt it should be “a day of sentiment, not profit.” She was once arrested for disturbing the peace for protesting a Mother’s Day celebration in New York.

“Given our consumer-driven economy, it seems inevitable that if holidays survive they will be commercialized to some degree,” said Laura Prieto, an associate professor of history and women’s studies at Simmons College in Boston. “But to be socially meaningful, holidays must also have other elements beyond consumer culture.”

What has allowed Mother’s Day to become celebrated on the second Sunday in May in 52 countries is “everyone has a mother,” said Sally Thayer, a trustee of the International Mother’s Day Shrine in Grafton. “It’s a wonderful thing to celebrate.”

Jarvis never had children or married. The idea for Mother’s Day came to Jarvis after she overheard her mother say it would be nice if someone created a memorial to mothers. Jarvis’ mother died in 1905, and three years later Jarvis organized the first official mother’s day service.

Although she was living in Philadelphia, Jarvis wanted that service to be held in Grafton in the church where her mother Ann had spent more than 20 years teaching Sunday school. The former Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church is now the official shrine to mothers around the world.

This Sunday, the shrine will celebrate the Mother’s Day centennial keeping with the tradition Jarvis started of giving each mother attending the special service a white carnation. Jarvis chose the flower because she felt it signified the purity of a mother’s love.

The shrine also serves as a “reminder to the accomplishments of these women and to the issues mothers still deal with today, trying to do the balancing act of being everything to everyone,” said Cindi Mason, the shrine’s director.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 83 million mothers in the United States. More mothers now work out of the home and the number of single-mother households has tripled to more than 10 million since 1970.

Prieto said Jarvis’ devotion to and her fierce defense of Mother’s Day could be tied to the feeling that “a certain era was passing and mothers like her mother were becoming fewer.”

By all accounts, Jarvis’ mother was a community activist who worked to heal the divisions in north-central West Virginia following the Civil War, and to promote improved sanitation by creating Mothers Friendship Clubs.

“I would love to be like Mrs. Jarvis,” said Olive Dadisman, who operates the Anna Jarvis Birthplace Museum in nearby Webster. “She was a soft-spoken, gentle woman, but she could convince the devil to give up his pitch fork.”

West Virginia became the first state to recognize Mother’s Day in 1910. President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution in 1914 marking the second Sunday in May a nationwide observance.

“Mother’s Day was meant to be — and still is — a celebration of a nineteenth-century ideal of motherhood, when mothers were supposed to dedicate themselves completely to nurturing their children and making a cozy, safe home for their families,” Prieto said.

Yet, Jarvis became increasingly disturbed as the celebration turned into an excuse to sell greeting cards, candy, flowers and other items. Jarvis became know for scathing letters where she would berate people who purchased greeting cards saying they were too lazy to write personal letters “to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world.”

The National Retail Federation estimates that Americans will spend $15 billion this year honoring their mothers. Dining out is expected to be the No. 1 expense.

In the end, Mason said Jarvis was bitter about what the observance had become and “wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control ...”

“But when you look at Mother’s Day as being her baby of sorts, you can understand her protectiveness of it.”

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.