CELEBRATING
MOTHER’S DAY

Topics: Caring; Compassion; Family; Gratitude; Honor; Influence; Love; Mothers; Nurture; Sacrifice

References: Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16; Proverbs 31:28; Ephesians 6:1–2

Anna Maria Reeves-Jarvis of Grafton, West Virginia, organized a club of women to nurse wounded soldiers from the North and South during the Civil War. After the war, Reeves-Jarvis started “Mothers’ Friendship Days” to reconcile families that had been divided by the conflict.

Throughout her life, Reeves-Jarvis modeled the ideals of Victorian motherhood. She gave up her dreams of college to care for an older husband and four children. She bore the loss of seven other children with grace. She taught Sunday school in the local Methodist church for twenty years and stayed active in benevolent work.

Her death in 1905 devastated her daughter Anna. She honored her mother’s memory by initiating a holiday honoring all mothers. Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 in Grafton (where Anna grew up) and Philadelphia (where she lived as an adult). Later, in a resolution passed May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress officially established the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

—Elesha Coffman, “Mom, We Salute You,” Christian History Newsletter (May 10, 2002)