MOTHER DAY

The woman who founded International Mother's Day regretted it

(Anna Jarvis)

Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May every year in different countries around the world, but the woman who celebrates this day (Anna Jarvis)

If she were alive today, she would approve of celebrating this day on a small scale, given the circumstances of this year.

The commercialization of the day had frightened them so much that they even campaigned for its abolition.

When Elizabeth Burr received a phone call a few days ago asking about her family history, she initially thought there was a problem. "I thought my identity was stolen and I will never get my money back," he said.

In fact, the call came from a family history researcher looking for Anna Jarvis' surviving relatives. Anna Jarvis is the same woman who founded Mother's Day in the United States a century ago.

Anna Jarvis was one of her parents' 13 children, of whom only four reached puberty. His older brother was the only one to have children of his own. Many of their children also died at an early age and all of them died of tuberculosis. His last direct heir died in the 1980s.

So Elizabeth Zetland of My Heritage decided to look for her first cousins, and that's why she turned her attention to Elizabeth Burr.

International Mother's Day "You trusted when no one did"

Anna Jarvis was inspired to celebrate a special day for her mother by her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis.

When Elizabeth was assured that her savings were safe, she told My Heritage the wonderful news that her father and aunts did not celebrate Mother's Day when they were growing up. He was doing it out of respect for those who always felt that his idea had been hijacked for commercial gain.

Anna Jarvis was inspired to celebrate a special day for her mother by her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis.

Historian Catherine Antolini says Mrs. Jarvis spent her life mobilizing mothers to care for their children and she wanted mothers to be recognized and appreciated.

"I hope and pray that one day someone will lay the foundation for Mother's Day so that the unparalleled service they render to humanity in all walks of life will be appreciated," said Mrs. Jarios.

She was very active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, where she ran the Mother's Day Work Club from 1858 to deal with infant and child mortality because of the diseases in the community in Grafton, West Virginia. Was a devastated community.

In these work clubs, mothers were taught hygiene and hygiene, such as the importance of boiling drinking water. Organizers provided medicine and other supplies to sick families, and when needed, the entire family was separated and quarantined to protect them from infectious diseases.

Anatolyn, a professor at Wesleyan College in West Virginia, says Mrs. Jarvis herself lost nine children, including five during the American Civil War (1861-1865). It was also caused by diseases.

Antolini says that when Mrs. Jarvis died in 1905, she was surrounded by her four surviving children. Meanwhile, the grieving Anna had vowed to fulfill her mother's dream, even though she had a very different idea about a memorable day like Mother's Day.

While Mrs. Jarvis wanted to celebrate mothers for the sake of improving the lives of others, Anna had the idea of ​​a devoted daughter. Her motto for Mother's Day was "Celebrate for the best mother in the world who is your mother." That is why the place of mothers is mother, that is, the epistrophy in the mother's KS is before the SK and not later.

"Anna saw the holiday as a return home, a day when you honor your mother, honor the woman who dedicated her life to you," says Aitolini. Of

(Mother's Day)

The fourth Sunday in Lent, UK, has long been celebrated as Modern Sunday. In fact, those who leave home on this day return to their 'Mother Church' to meet their parents there.

In 1920, Constance Pensook Smith, a woman from Nottinghamshire, launched a campaign to revive Mothering Sunday's traditions, fearing that secular American Mother's Day would end Christian Mothering Sunday.

The second Sunday in May, chosen by Anna Jarvis, has been adopted by many countries as Mother's Day, but other dates are also celebrated in many places.

It was a message that touched everyone and reached the churches. Antolini says choosing Sunday as Mother's Day was Anna's smart decision.

hree years after Mrs. Jarvis's death, Mother's Day was celebrated for the first time at Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton. Anna Jarvis chose the second Sunday in May because it usually falls around May 9, the day her mother died. On this day, Anna presented her mother's favorite flower, the White Gulnaras, to the mothers attending the celebration.

The popularity of the celebration grew every year. Even the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that soon you will no longer have to "beg, borrow or steal" for Gulnar. In 1910, Mother's Day became a public holiday in West Virginia, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared it a national holiday.

A big factor in the success of the day was its commercial appeal. "Although Anna never wanted this day to be commercialized, it quickly became a market," says Antolini. The flower industry, the greeting card industry and the candy industry all played a role in its promotion

But this is not exactly what Anna wanted.

When the price of carnations skyrocketed, he issued a press release condemning the florists: Am I bent on ruining one of the best movements and celebrations of the best, goodness and truth? '

Until 1920, she was urging people not to buy flowers.

Although Anna Jarvis never wanted this day to be commercialized, it soon became a market. The flower industry, the greeting card industry and the candy industry all played a role in its promotion.

Antolini says she was angry with any organization that used the day she invented for anything other than its originality, emotional attachment and purpose. It also included charities that used the day to raise funds, even if the money was meant to help poor mothers.

Aitolini says it was a day to celebrate mothers, not to feel sorry for them because they were poor. In addition, some charities were not using the money as promised for poor mothers.

Mother's Day was even dragged into the debate over women's suffrage. Opponents of the expansion of the right to vote said that the right place for women is the home and that she is so preoccupied with being a wife and mother that she cannot be involved in politics.

Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. And he wanted women to have the right to decide the future of their children.

It seems that Anna was the only one who did not take advantage of Mother's Day. He refused to accept the money offered by the florists.

Antolini said she had never benefited from the day, although she could have done so easily. I admire them for that.

Anna and her sister Lillian, who were weak and visually impaired, lived on the legacy of their father and brother Claude. Claude used to run a taxi business in Philadelphia before he had a heart attack.

But Anna did her best to fight Mother's Day commercialization.

Even before it became a national holiday, he claimed all rights reserved on Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May, threatening legal action against anyone who marketed it without permission. Will

Antolini says that sometimes groups or industries would deliberately post-apostrophe in the spelling of mothers to avoid Anna's copyright.

A 1944 Newsweek article claimed that 33 cases were pending.

By this time she was 80 years old and almost blind, deaf and helpless and was being cared for in a Philadelphia sanatorium.

It has long been claimed that the flower and card industry secretly pays for Anna Jarvis' care, but Aitolini has never been able to confirm this.

"I'd like them to do that. It might be a good story, but it's not true," she said.When Anna was living with her sister, the last thing she did was go door-to-door in Philadelphia to get people to sign Mother's Day. Once she was admitted to the sanatorium, Lillian soon died of carbon monoxide poisoning as she tried to heat a dilapidated house. "Police claimed it was so cold there were icons hanging from the roof," Antolini said. Anna died of a heart attack in November 1948.

Jane Encifer, 86, Anna's first cousin (and Elizabeth Burr's aunt), says Anna Jarvis was obsessed with the crusade against commercialization.

"I don't think she was very rich, but she spent all the money she had," she said.

"It's a shame. I don't want people to think that his family was not taking care of him but he ended up like a beggar's grave.

They may not have been able to help him at the end of his life, but the family remembers Anna in a different way that they did not celebrate Mother's Day for many generations.

"We didn't really like Mother's Day," says Jane Encifer. And it wasn't because my mother had heard so many negative things about Mother's Day as a child. We recognize it as a good feeling, but we don't arrange a lavish dinner or a bouquet. "

As a young mother, Jane would stop in front of a Mother's Day plaque in Philadelphia and think of Anna. "It's a comforting story because there's so much love in it," says Jane. And I think something good came out of it. "People remember their mother the way they want to be remembered."

Jane admitted that she had changed her mind about the celebration. "After many generations, I have forgotten all the negative things my mother ever said about her and I get very angry if I don't hear any good news from my children on this occasion. I want them to respect me and my day. "

Jane's younger sister, Emily de Olivier, has also noticed a change in her attitude towards Mother's Day over time.

"I didn't really know about it until my own child came home from school with a Mother's Day gift for me," she says. Our mother used to say, "Every day is Mother's Day."

For a long time Emily was sad that Anna's original purpose of the day had been thwarted, but now she sends a card to her granddaughter's mother, her daughter-in-law.

Due to the lockdown this year, many families will not be able to offer flowers to their mothers or go out with them, but will celebrate Mother's Day through a video link.

But Antolini believes that Anna and her mother will be happy with such a low-level celebration. She imagines that Mrs. Jarvis, who had experienced many epidemics, would revive Mother's Day clubs to help others. And Anna will be happy with the lack of shopping opportunities that caused her original purpose to be lost in the clouds.