The second Sunday in May
Anna May Jarvis was forty-two years old and living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1906. She was very close to her mother, but her mother died on the second Sunday in May of that year. Anna was devastated and became obsessed with creating a day to help people to remember everything that mothers do for their families. Anna planned a religious service at the church in West Virginia where her mother taught Sunday School. She held the service on May 10, 1908 exactly two years after her mother died. One year later, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania became the first city to proclaim a Mother's Day officially. Then, three years later, West Virginia made this anniversary a holiday for the entire state. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a law that proclaimed the second Sunday in May would be Mother's Day for the entire country. Ironically, Anna May Jarvis never married and was never a mother herself.
Devastated (adjective): destroyed; completely ruined
Obsessed (adjective): unable to forget something
Officially (adverb): established by an authority (like the government)
Anniversary (noun): the date that an important event happened; usually remembered or celebrated every year after the first time
Ironically (adverb): something is different that you expected
For the last 9 years I have made dinner for my wife for Mother's Day.She likes my chicken and rice, my lasagna, my egg rolls, and my Buffalo wings. And I like to cook. Also, for the past 9 years, I have helped the kids to create homemade Mother's Day cards. I let the kids createwhatever they want but I always make sure that we draw an outline of their hand somewhere on the card so we can take them out each year and see how much they have grown. The kids really enjoy comparing their hand with their old handprints. When this tradition started we had one child. Now we have four. The number of cards has really grown and we've saved them all. (Dave, age 35, Utah)
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Last modified on April 27, 1999.