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Mother’s Day tradition strong as ever |
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Wednesday, 09 May 2007 |
 THREE GENERATIONS – On a World Day of Prayer, three generations of Kronebusch ladies gathered to have a picture taken in honor of Mothers everywhere on their special day, May 13. From the left is, RutheMary Kronebusch, her granddaughter Julie Brown and daughter Dede Brown. The photo was taken at St. Michael’s Catholic Church on Friday. I-O Photo by Buck Traxler
Whether it’s right here in Conrad or half way around the world, the custom of Mother’s Day, celebrated this Sunday, will be a time to honor and pamper Mom’s.
One time honored way that Mom will be pampered is serving her breakfast in bed. Another is to treat Mom to a dinner at her favorite restaurant.
The honoring of mothers is not a recent custom. Mother’s Day celebration can actually be traced back to ancient Greece when they honored Rhea, the Mother of the Gods.
During the 1600s, in merry old England, they celebrated a day called, “Mothering Sunday.” The day to pay homage to the Mothers of England was celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent.
At this point in history, England’s poor often worked as servants and lived in the homes of their employers, usually because they lived away from their own homes.
On Mothering Sunday, servants would have the day off to be with their mothers.
In the U.S. Mother’s Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe. She became famous for writing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, as a day dedicated to peace.
In 1907, Anna Jarvis, from Philadelphia, started a campaign to establish a national Mother’s Day.
She persuaded her church to celebrate Mother’s Day on the second anniversary of her mother’s death, which happened to be the second Sunday in May.
Jarvis and other supporters began to write to ministers and businessmen to establish a national Mother’s day.
By 1911, Mother’s Day was celebrated is just about every state in the union and by 1912, it was an official holiday in many states. It was in 1914 that President Woodrow Wilson made the official proclamation, making Mother’s Day as a national holiday to be held each year on the second Sunday of May.
However, what many don’t realize is that when Wilson declared the holiday, it was as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in the war.
In another side note to Mother’s Day, it is interesting to note that about nine years after the first official Mother’s Day holiday, commercialization of the U.S. holiday was so rampart that original proponent of the special day, Anna Jarvis herself, became an opponent of what the holiday had become.
Nevertheless, the special day remains as one of the most commercially successful in U.S. history.
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