Mother's Day - A brief history
by Francois Cinq-Mars
A Brief History of Mother’s day;
The earliest celebration honoring mothers dates back to the annual spring festival of ancient Greece dedicated to Rhea, the Mother of the Gods.
The Greeks would pay tribute with honey-cakes and fine wine and flowers at dawn. Much like our current Mother's Day tradition of breakfast in bed! Early Christians celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honor of the Virgin Mary. Later, in England, an ecclesiastical order expanded the holiday to include all mothers, and decreed it as Mothering Sunday. Servants would have the day off and were encouraged to return home and spend the day with their mothers.
When the first English colonists settled in America they didn't really have time for many celebrations. The tradition of Mothering Sunday was discontinued until 1872 when Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), the author of the lyrics to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, organized a day for mothers dedicated to peace.
In 1907, Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948), a Philadelphia schoolteacher, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day in honor of her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis. She wrote hundreds of letters to legislators and prominent businessmen on both state and national levels asking them to create a special day to honor mothers. On May 10, 1908, the third anniversary of the death of Anna's mother, the minister of the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia (the church her mother had attended) gave a special Mother's day sermon honoring Mrs. Jarvis' memory. Anna handed out her mother's favorite flower a white carnation, proclaiming the second Sunday in May as a national holiday in honor of mothers. In 1914, Anna's hard work finally paid off when President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day an official holiday.
So in honor of Mother’s Day the Management and staff of Bentley’s would like to wish every mother a happy Mother’s Day and don’t forget to give your mother a great bottle of wine and a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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