“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who’s done more for you than anyone in the world.”
-Anna Jarvis (1864-1948), credited as Mother’s Day foundress, quoted in her New York Times obituary
A lifelong spinster, by 1943, Anna Jarvis was so disgusted at the crass commercialization of her idea, that she began a petition to repeal the holiday proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in Presidential Proclamation 1268
on May 9, 1914 as being the second Sunday in May, declaring the first national Mother’s Day as a day for “government officials to display the United States flag on all government buildings, and the people of the United States to display the flag at their homes or other suitable places on the second Sunday in May as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” That roughly translates as encouragement for Read the rest of this entry »