Mother's Day: Where It Came From & How to Gift the Best Last Minute Present

Mother’s Day is tomorrow. Throughout time, offspring appreciation has been expressed in one form or another as a sort of holiday. Some will say this was merely a marketing ploy invented by greeting card companies, when in fact that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Anna Marie Jarvis was a child during the Civil War when her mother was a caretaker of wounded soldiers, as well as a community activist, which was no easy task for a woman in those days. It is said that as a young girl, Jarvis heard her mother praying that one day there would be a memorial day for mothers and all the good they do. Jarvis had a deep love and respect for her strong-willed mother who passed away in May of 1905. To honor her mother’s prayer, a plan was set in motion to create an actual Mother’s Day.

By May 1910, word of the holiday had spread, and West Virginia was the first state to observe the second Sunday of the month as Mother’s Day. After four years of pressuring the government with waves of handwritten letters, the second Sunday in May was declared a federally-recognized holiday in 1914. President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill making it official.

Jarvis’ idea of Mother’s Day was that the morning would be spent in church and in the afternoon children would write their mothers letters or make them cards. Carnations became the signature flower to give to mothers and they were Jarvis’ mother’s favorite flower. Pink or red carnations honored living mothers, as white one honored those who had passed.

However by 1920, the greeting card companies were keen to pick up what they recognized as an untapped source of revenue annually. Jarvis was so upset by the way that her special holiday for mothers had been commercialized that she petitioned to have it abolished in 1924.

She was arrested in 1930 for disturbing the peace at a Mother’s Day carnation sale. In fact she became so determined to end the holiday she spent the rest of her life and money on fighting to end the holiday she felt so strongly had been poisoned by a combination of greed and sloth. She died unmarried and without children of her own in 1948.

In the spirit of Jarvis’ original idea of taking the time to hand make a card or write a letter to your mother, LIVE! suggests trying this for your mother this year, we suspect she will love it. In the day and age of e-mails and text messages, anything handwritten sends a clear message that you care enough to take the time to create something unique from yourself to someone who matters most. 

And since this is 2015, don’t feel guilty about stepping it up a notch and going out to buy mom something nice to go with it.

 If you’ve waited until the last minute, and you don’t necessarily want a tattoo of a heart with Mom written across it on your arm, here are some places you can go to pick up what you need for a “gift card bouquet”.

A “gift card bouquet” consists of a variety of gift cards either placed in a floral bouquet arrangement or just included with the card or nice letter you have written to your personal note to your mother. Flowers are always nice, but gift cards don’t wilt.

There are a number of places to pick up gift cards. Every mother eats lunch, so why not pick up gift cards at places like: Chick Fil A, Chicken Express, D-Ray’s, Green’s Grocery and Café, Indian Cuisine, Julio’s, Lonestar Cheeseburger, Packsaddle Barbeque, The Smiling Moose and Wok and Rice. You could even go a step above and pick up a week’s worth of lunch for your mother in gift cards.

Or maybe your mother is a shopper, give her the freedom to pick her gift by giving her a gift card from one of these retailers of clothing, furniture, and cosmetology services: Barbed Wire and Roses, Bella& Olivia, Blair’s Western Wear, Bratton’s Furniture, Cano’s Diamonds, Casa Décor, Curves, Lovely Eyebrow Threadings, My Trainer, Sara’s Design, So Unique Boutique, Tarpley Music, and West Central Wireless.

Have a Happy Mother’s Day