by Elaine Carlson

Sunday I survived another Mother's Day after my mother has been gone. At first I thought I would concentrate on other matters. I guess I should have known I would not be able to forget what day it was

On Mother's Day when I was seven, I fixed and served breakfast in bed to my mother. I carefully fried two eggs over easy, fixed the toast and poured a glass of orange juice. I don't remember if I fried bacon for that meal but I probably did. That day she didn't have a cup of coffee with her breakfast because I didn't know how to fix it. I was happy when she thanked me and said the breakfast was very lovely.

All these years later I don't remember what mother did after she ate her breakfast. But I am sure the most likely thing she did was get out of bed and do what she thought she, as a mother, was supposed to do -- fix breakfast for her four children. And she most likely fixed coffee.

On Sunday I wanted to do more than think about previous Mother's Days so I did some online research. 

In 1905 soon after her mother died, Anna Jarvis (1864 to 1948) started to campaign for Americans to set aside one day a year to honor mothers. In 1912 she trademarked the phrase, "Second Sunday in May, Mother's Day. Anna Jarvis, Founder."  

Her mother Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis (1832 – 1905)  was a remarkable woman. In the American Civil War she took care of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. When that war was over she was active in peace groups that worked to eliminate war. 

Anna Jarvis was sure that spelling mattered and insisted she was advocating for Mother's Day, which was written "with a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world."  

On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day "as a public expression of love and reverence for the mothers of our country."

It was not long after Wilson made that proclamation she became unhappy that the commercial interests of "confectioners, florists, and cards" thought the whole idea of the day was to make money. She especially resented Hallmark cards. And said: 

"A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone [else] in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother --- and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment."

Many people made a lot of money on Mother's Day but Jarvis never did. In 1943 she started a petition to rescind Mother's Day and spent a lot of time mounting public protests. And she was often arrested for being disorderly.

"However, these efforts were halted when she was placed in the Marshall Square Sanitarium at West Chester, Pennsylvania. People connected with the floral and greeting card industries paid the bills to keep her in the sanitarium [Anna Jarvis Wikipedia]."

Before Sunday, market analysists said this year Americans will spend $37.Billion on Mother's Day.