Happy Mother’s Day From The Sarasota Post

May 12, 2019 | Laura Bell Adams | Blog

Mother’s Day is observed in different ways by over 40 countries around the world and annually on different dates. According to Wikipedia, ours was first celebrated in 1908 when a woman named Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia.

Her mother was Ann Reeves Jarvis. She lived in an Appalachian community, having moved there with her husband from Culpeper, Virginia. Over seventeen years she had about a dozen children, but only four survived to adulthood. Because of that she started Mother’s Day Work Clubs in the towns around where she lived. These clubs of women raised money to buy medicine and help for mother’s that were suffering health problems. There was a lot of typhoid fever around back then. When the American Civil War came to her area she led the clubs to remain neutral, helping the wounded soldiers on both sides. She helped keep her community together by having a “Mothers Friendship Day” for all the soldiers, from both sides, helping all to realise there could be peace.

Anna Jarvis helped mothers all through her life and her daughter, Anna Marie Jarvis, wanted to honor her work. So, she had the first official observance of Mother’s Day where her mother had taught Sunday School for 25 years. Her daughter also was instrumental in making the holiday officially recognized when President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional resolution in 1914.

Poems are such a great way to express your feelings for your mom. Here a few I found that touched me.

A Mother’s Prayer For You
I said a Mother’s Day prayer for you
to thank the Lord above
for blessing me with a lifetime
of your tenderhearted love.
I thanked God for the caring
you’ve shown me through the years,
for the closeness we’ve enjoyed
in time of laughter and of tears.
And so, I thank you from the heart
for all you’ve done for me
and I bless the Lord for giving me
the best mother there could be!
~ Anon.

To My Mother
For all the times you gently picked me up,
When I fell down,
For all the times you tied my shoes
And tucked me into bed,
Or needed something
But put me first instead.
For everything we shared,
The dreams, the laughter,
And the tears,
I love you with a “Special Love”
That deepens every year.
~ Anon.

Grandma
While we honor all our mothers
with words of love and praise.
While we tell about their goodness
and their kind and loving ways.
We should also think of Grandma,
she’s a mother too, you see…
For she mothered my dear mother
as my mother mothers me.
~ Anon.