The Inventor of Mother’s Day Spent The Last Years of Her Life Trying To Destroy It
The story of Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis and corporate greed
According to Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother’s Day, the holiday was not to be observed with objects or things. The greatest present for any mother on their special day was to receive in person visits from their living children. If one was not in the position to visit their mother on Mother’s Day, their presence could be substituted for a lengthy hand written letter.
To Jarvis, Mother’s Day was about celebrating motherhood and spending time with family. It was what her mother Ann Maria had wanted. It was the ideals of Anna Jarvis’s mother of a day filled with love and respect for moms worldwide is what pushed Jarvis to launch the movement that established Mother’s Day as a legitimate holiday.
But it quickly turned into something she despised.
The first Mother’s Day
Ironically, Anna Jarvis had no children of her own. She never even married. Her respect for the institution of motherhood came from her own mom who had birthed…
