Question: Dear Mr. McLemore, How did Mother’s Day come to be a national holiday?

Answer: I have read that while celebrations of motherhood had precedents in ancient Greece and England, in the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe. She would hold organized Mother's Day meetings in Boston, Massachusetts every year. In 1907 Anna Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. She persuaded the church of which her mother was a member in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May. By the next year Mother's Day was also celebrated in Philadelphia. Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, businessmen, and politicians urging the establishment of a national Mother's Day. By 1911, Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state in the Union. Finally, in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Mother's Day a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May. Thank God for mothers!