Harmon’s Histories: Thank Presbyterians, governor, grateful daughter for Mothers Day

By Jim Harmon

The movement began in 1908. Nebraska Senator Elmer Burkett introduced a resolution in Washington D.C. to designate May 18 as “Mother’s Day, and suggesting that all senators and other officials of the Senate should wear a white flower in honor of the day.”

A couple of weeks later, members of Missoula’s Presbyterian church suggested there should be an annual “memorial day for mothers,” and asked all churches of that denomination to “preach upon the subject of motherhood.”

The Weekly Missoulian reported “Reverend E. W. White, of the local Presbyterian church, will, in accordance with this general plan, take this theme for his morning sermon Sunday. All who are interested in the plan are invited to be present.”

In 1910, newspapers reported that, “In nearly all of the states of the Union, the governors have issued proclamations, which have been supplemented by the mayors of the larger cities, declaring tomorrow (May 8th) to be Mothers’ day and requesting the observance of the holiday as generally as possible.”

Mothers, the article declared, should be recognized for “their lives of self denial and sacrifice for their sons and daughters.”

Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia was credited with originating the idea, which “has grown with remarkable rapidity, until this year its observance will be nation wide.”

Hope has been “expressed it will soon become an international festival date, observed by Christians the world over and possibly by Moslem and heathen – for it is the one subject on which all mankind can unite in common reverence.”

Jarvis wanted to “honor her own mother’s death, which took place on the second Sunday of May 1905.”

In 1911, Montana Governor Norris issued a proclamation, “the first of its kind ever issued by a Montana governor, designating next Sunday (May 14th) as Mothers’ Day.”

In modern times, according to history.com, “Millions of American families honor their mothers every year with cards, flowers, special meals and other gifts on the second Sunday in May. But Jarvis later regretted lobbying for the official holiday after it became commercialized.”

In the United Kingdom, “Mothering Sunday” dates back to the Middle Ages, “when people in domestic service were allowed to return to their home, or mother, or church, and often visited family.”

In Japan, Mothers Day dates to 1931, originally celebrating the birthday of Empress Kojun. In Peru, Mothers Day includes honoring a family’s deceased female relatives.

Let me leave you with John Greenleaf Whittier’s (1807-92) “Tribute to Mother.”

A picture memory brings to me;
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother’s knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child’s blind sense of wrong and pain.
But wiser now, a man gray grown,
My childhood’s needs are better known.
My mother’s chastening love I own.

Happy Mothers Day!