COVID CHRONICLES 05/10/20
Mother’s Day History and Ruminations
One of the joys of writing COVID CHRONICLES is researching whatever I’m going to talk about, then sharing what I learn. I do this so you don’t have to! So, before turning to some personal reflections, today I present a brief history of Mother’s Day.
I was under the impression this was the “Original Hallmark Holiday.” Not so! What follows is gleaned from Wikipedia and a mentalfloss.com article by Jonathan Mulinix from a year ago, Why Mother’s Day Founder Anna Jarvis Later Fought to Have the Holiday Abolished. Emphases added.
Many traditional celebrations of mothers and motherhood have existed throughout the world over thousands of years, such as the Greek cult to Cybele, Rhea the Great Mother of the Gods, the Roman festival of Hilaria, or the Christian Mothering Sunday celebration (originally a commemoration of Mother Church, not motherhood). In some countries, Mother’s Day is still synonymous with these older traditions.
However, the modern Mother’s Day wasn’t directly connected to any of these. It began in the United States in the early 20th century at the initiative of Anna Jarvis (1864–1948).
Ann Reeves Jarvis and her daughter Anna Marie Jarvis
Anna’s mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, was a peace activist who cared for the wounded on both sides of the Civil War. Ann created “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” to address public health issues. She and another peace activist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe urged for the creation of a Mother’s Day dedicated to peace.
Ward Howe made her Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870, which called upon mothers of all nationalities to band together to promote the “amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.” Anna Jarvis wanted to set aside a day to honor all mothers because she believed a mother is “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world.”
When her mother Ann passed away in 1905, Anna was devastated. But she soon found an outlet to memorialize her mother by working to promote a day that would honor all mothers.
112 years ago TODAY, May 10, 1908, was the first Mother’s Day celebration.
Mother’s Day events were held at the church in Grafton, West Virginia where Ann Jarvis taught Sunday School (which now holds the International Mother’s Day Shrine), and at the Wanamaker’s department store auditorium in Philadelphia, PA. Anna did not attend the event in Grafton, but she sent 500 white carnations — her mother’s favorite flower. The carnations were to be worn by sons and daughters in honor of their own mothers, and to represent the purity of a mother’s love.
That same year, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother’s Day an official holiday, joking they would also have to proclaim a “Mother-in-Law’s Day.” That didn’t stop Anna. By 1911, every state observed the holiday, with some of them officially recognizing Mother’s Day as a local holiday.
In 1912 Anna trademarked the phrase “Second Sunday in May, Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, Founder,” and created the Mother’s Day International Association. She specifically noted that the word “Mother’s” should “be a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”
In 1914, Anna realized her and her mother’s dream. President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother’s Day — to be held on the second Sunday in May — as a national holiday to honor mothers.
Enter Hallmark
By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other companies had started selling Mother’s Day cards. Anna believed the companies had misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother’s Day. The emphasis of the holiday ought to be on sentiment, not profit, she said.
As a result, Anna organized boycotts of Mother’s Day, and threatened to issue lawsuits against the companies involved.
Jarvis argued that people should appreciate and honor their mothers through handwritten letters expressing their love and gratitude, instead of buying gifts and pre-made cards. She protested at a candy makers’ convention in Philadelphia in 1923, and at a meeting of American War Mothers in 1925… She was arrested for disturbing the peace after protesting the selling of carnations by the American War Mothers to raise money.
You can imagine where this story is leading.
However, Anna’s efforts to hold on to the original meaning of the day led to her own economic hardship. While others profited from the day, Jarvis did not, and she spent the later years of her life with her sister Lillie. In 1943, she began organizing a petition to rescind Mother’s Day. However, these efforts were halted when she was placed in the Marshall Square Sanitarium in West Chester, Pennsylvania. People connected with the floral and greeting card industries paid the bills to keep her in the sanitarium.
She died five years later.
Today we honor the memory of Anna Jarvis and her mother by returning to the spirit of the holiday she created. A toast to Anna!
My Mom, Katherine (Kit) Hartman
I’ll be sharing much more about my mother’s life story in another piece I’m working on. But here’s a brief history.
Born Katherine Marie Sanford, she came to be called Kit. She married my father and became Kit Hausser. When I was born she wasn’t yet 21. Seven years and two miscarriages later, she had me (age 7), my brother (age 3) and my newborn sister to care for while my father focused on his career.
My mother and father separated for the first time when I was 12 years old and were eventually divorced. After a time, she met and married her second husband, took his last name, and became Kit Hartman. This remains her legal name to this day, as she was never motivated to change it back or to anything else. Her last partner of ten years and she were never married.
In any case, at this point in her life, forget last names. She is KIT. Sometimes Mom-Kit, sometimes Nana-Kit. But she’s earned the right to be known by a single name.
It’s been quite a year for Mom-Kit. Last Memorial Day weekend she had a horrible accident with a scalding cup of coffee (litigation in progress) and spent a month in the severe burn unit of a Florida hospital, taking months more to recover. Her partner, from whom she had split a year earlier but to whom she was still tied, died several months later.
One thing I can say about my mother is that she’s a survivor. I also don’t know anyone who has worked harder to lead an examined life. She went through a short period after her burns when she contemplated how much life she had left in her. She came out deciding she had more to live, do and learn. That’s my mom!
She is now 81 and living in her own apartment on the 10th floor of an independent living senior facility in Sarasota, Florida. We all feel fortunate she’s there, despite that it’s in the state of Florida with it’s lax policies toward COVID-19. The owners of the building got WAY out in front of the virus, asking people to stop attending external events, prohibiting visitors, and taking other important social distancing steps. As a result, according to my Mom, not a single person in her building has come down with the virus! (It’s possible SHE came down with it earlier, but that’s a different story. And even if she did, she passed it to no one.)
Right now, her position is “It’s not safe for me to go out. And I don’t know when it will be.” She seems ok with that. She’s not spending time speculating on how it will all end and what it will look like. As an “extroverted introvert” (like me), her introverted self is celebrating with other introverts that the world finally works the way they like it!
I have a special relationship with my mother. Not compared to anyone else. Just talking in terms of its personal quality. For one thing, while I took much from my dad — genetically and otherwise — I am most like my mom. My father turned raising me over to her when I was two (he admitted this much later). She’s the one person who has always “seen me” throughout the course of my life. And, as I grew older, I learned to see her too. We’ve always been able to “go deep” whether in-person or on the phone. At this point we’re able to be completely honest with each other (though she still hides out from time to time when she’s not feeling well — that’s where my sister’s daily calls to her come in handy).
None of us know what the future holds. Loved ones can pass — especially in these circumstances — in a heartbeat. I am so grateful to have a mother who is not only alive, but living, day to day, moment to moment. I’ve never met another person who could wring every precious drop of joy out of every possible opportunity the way she can. And now that I have a wife who also sees me — a mother in her own right — I’m reveling in the joy of having both these women in my life together as long as humanly possible.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
Happy Mother’s Day, Lisa!
The Mother of My Children
I raised my sons in the same household as my ex-wife until they were 16 and 19. As mentioned in a previous post, we consciously set out to bring two “good men” into a world that desperately needs stand-up, aware white men. We were a close family who had dinner together most nights, and both of us were deeply involved in our kids’ lives.
My sons have told me more than once in recent years that they had a great childhood, and that we were both great parents. I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to hear those words. I’m sure their Mom feels the same way. So, Happy Mother’s Day to her too.
Take home message: Call Your Mutha! Hug her if you can! Hug your children! In the name of Anna and Ann, Kit and Lisa, my sister Sherri, my sister-in-laws Marika and Tish, my stepmom Marsha (though she didn’t play that role with me, she’s always included):
To every mom — no matter whether you actually gave birth to “Your Children” or raised them as your own — a very, very,
