The teacher? Her own mother.
The lesson? "Mothers of the Bible.”
Her mother's prayer? "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial Mother’s Day commemorating the mother for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.”
Anna later remembered that moment: "This heart-rending, agonizing prayer burned its way into my mind and heart so deeply, and it never ceased to burn. I could never forget it... “From that Sunday on, Anna Jarvis committed herself to her own mother's life-long battle to honor mothers. From Anna's point of view, Mother's Day seems to have been born in 1876.
Or, May 9, 1905, the day Mrs. Jarvis died. As her casket was lowered into the ground. Anna cried out, "Mother, that prayer made in our little church at Grafton calling for someone, somewhere, sometime to found a memorial-to-mothers day. The time and place is here and the someone is your daughter, and by the grace of God, you shall have that Mother's Day.”
Or, Mother's Day may have been born on the second Sunday in May 1907, two years after Mrs. Jarvis' funeral. On that Sunday, Anna arranged for friends in Grafton to hold a memorial service for her mother. And, in Philadelphia, she is said to have invited friends to her home to share her vision of a new national holiday, a "Mother's Day.”
Or, Mother's Day may have been born on May 10, 1908, the day after the third anniversary of Mrs. Jarvis' death, when Anna arranged the first official Mother's Day services to honor her own mother and mothers everywhere. Anna arranged to offer her mother's favorite flower – carnations – to those present in Grafton, beginning a Mother's Day tradition which still survives.
Mother's Day was instantly popular with the public. Who could fight it? However, it took Anna several years and one of the most concentrated letter-writing campaigns in history to make Mother's Day an official national holiday.
In her battle, she contacted anyone and everyone with clout: editors, ministers, business leaders, and elected officials from mayors to congressmen. She quit her job to dedicate herself full time to establishing Mother's Day.
From the point of view of the state of West Virginia. Mother 's Day was officially born in 1910 when West Virginia's governor, William E. Glasscock, issued the first state Mother's Day proclamation. Other states followed suit.
From the point of view of the nation, the birth of Mother's Day took place in 1914. On May 8, the two houses of Congress issued a joint resolution calling upon President Wilson to declare the second Sunday in May a national holiday celebrating, "the public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country." On May 9, the president signed the resolution, finally making Mother’s Day official.
Although many significant dates vie for the honor of the "birth date" of Mother's Day, there is less question about the birthplace. Philadelphia has sometimes claimed the honor, but Anna Jarvis, the acknowledged founder, was West Virginia born and bred; and her mother, the honored mother, lived in the Grafton area and fought there on behalf of families with the help of other mothers, her neighbors and friends. The Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton is now the site of the International Mother's Day Shrine.
This commercialism infuriated Anna. She filed several unsuccessful lawsuits against companies profiting from Mother's Day. In 1923, she fought Governor Al Smith of New York over his plans for a gigantic Mother's Day meeting. In 1931, she tangled with Eleanor Roosevelt, the future president's wife, over a Mother's Day committee rivaling her own organization. In 1934, she even fought the U.S. Post Office which, despite her objections, commemorated Mothers' Day with a three-cent stamp showing the famous portrait of Whistler's mother. The American public snapped up the issue.
In the mid-1940s when her health failed, Anna applied for public assistance. But her friends collected enough money to allow her to spend her last years in Marshall Square Sanitarium, a private institution, in West Chester, Pa.
On the wall of Anna's room in Marshall Square hung a letter. It said: "I am six years old and I love my mother very much. I am sending you this because you started Mother's Day.” A little boy had signed the letter and carefully sewn a one-dollar bill to the sheet of paper. This letter was said to be one of Anna's most prized possessions.
Sick and nearly blind, Anna Jarvis died on November 24, 1948 at the age of 84. She lost her war with commercialism. Americans now purchase 10 million bouquets of flowers and exchange 150 million greeting cards each year on Mother’s Day – a holiday which has now spread around the world.
In 1858, when the Jarvis family Bible recorded five children born- two already dead – Mrs. Jarvis took action against unsanitary conditions in the region. She called women of neighboring towns together in their churches and challenged them to organize “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” to improve public health and sanitation.
These clubs supplied medicines to the sick and also employed women to care for mothers with tuberculosis.
Despite Mrs. Jarvis leadership of the cause, eight of her own 12 children died in infancy or childhood. Anna Jarvis was her ninth child, born in 1864.
Mrs. Jarvis continued her work in public health as the Civil War raged. She saw the war as a new threat to family life. Grafton straddled the North-South border. Families, neighbors, and communities split.
Shortly after the first cannon fire at Fort Sumter, Mrs. Jarvis summoned the four divisions of her clubs to the Webster Church and challenged all members, Yankee or Rebel, to swear to continue working together, both during the war and after.
After the war, the entire community feared violence on the return of the soldiers. In 1868, Mrs. Jarvis convinced authorities to allow her clubs to organize a “Mother’s Friendship Day” to heal the community wounds.
When the day came, huge crowds gathered. Groups of well-armed Yankees and Rebels loitered on concerns in separate camps. The town fathers, fearing violence, begged Mrs. Jarvis to call off her Mother’s Friendship Day.
“I will not. I’m no coward,” she said.
Dressed in gray, although the Jarvis family appears to have been neutral during the war, and accompanied by a Confederate friend dressed in blue, Mrs. Jarvis asked the crowd to gather close around them. She spoke first of the purpose of Mother’s Friendship Day – to bring together families and neighbors in a cause they could all agree on – honoring mothers. Then she called on the band to play “Dixie.” Next her Confederate friend requested “The Star Spangled Banner.” By the time the band began the next song, “Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot,” people were crying, shaking hands, and hugging.