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The Story of Mother's Day
If you're one of the people who thought that Mother's Day was one those holidays created by Hallmark Cards or FTD Florists then you're in for a big surprise. Mothers' Day has a real story behind it. It originated from the efforts of a devoted daughter who believed that grown children preoccupied with their own families, too often neglected their mothers.
That daughter, Miss Anna Jarvis, a West Virginia school teacher, set out to rectify that neglect. Anna was very close to her mother and even followed in her foot steps becoming a school teacher. When her mother died on May 9, 1905 Anna was grief-stricken. Though by every measure she had been an exemplary daughter, she found herself consumed with guilt for all the things she had not done for her mother.
For two years these nagging feeling germinated, bearing the fruit of an idea in 1907. On the second Sunday in May, the anniversary of her mother's death, Anna Jarvis invited a group of friends to her Philadelphia home. She announced her idea for an annual nationwide celebration to be called Mother's Day. She tested the idea on others and it met with unanimous support. Mothers felt that such an act of recognition was long overdue. Every child concurred. No father dissented. A friend, John Wanamaker, America's number one clothing merchant, offered financial backing.
Early in the spring of 1908, Miss Jarvis wrote to the superintendent of Andrews Methodist Sunday School, in Grafton, where her mother had taught a weekly religion class for twenty years. She suggested that the local church would be the ideal location for a celebration in her mother's honor. By extension, all mothers present would receive recognition. So on May 10, 1908, the first Mother's Day service was held in Grafton, West Virginia, attended by 407 children and their mothers. At the conclusion of that service, Miss Jarvis presented each mother and child with a flower, a carnation, her own mother's favorite and launched a Mother's Day tradition.
To suggest that the idea of an annual Mother's Day celebration met with immediate public acceptance is perhaps an understatement. Few proposed holidays have had so much nationwide support. The House of Representatives quickly passed a Mother's Day resolution. However, one grumpy Midwestern senator complained: "Might as well have a Father's Day," the Congressional Record states. 'Or a mother-in-law's Day." "Or an Uncle's Day." The resolution stalled in the Senate.
A determined Anna Jarvis then began what has been called one of the most successful one-person letter-writing campaigns in history. She contacted congressmen, governors, mayors, newspaper editors, ministers, and business leaders throughout the country, everyone of importance who would listen. Listen they did, responding with editorials, sermons, and political orations. Villages and towns, cities and states, began unofficial Mother's Day observances. By 1914, to dissent on the Mother's Day issue seemed not only cynical but un-American. Finally, the Senate approved the legislation, and on May 8, 1914 , President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
Although the British had long paid tribute to mothers on the fourth Sunday of the Lenten season, known as "mothering Sunday", it took the American observance to give the idea worldwide prominence. Within a few years after President Wilson's proclamation, almost every country had Mother's Day.
Anna Jarvis had triumphed in her campaign for a Mother's Day.
AND NOW, FOR THE JOKE!!!!!
That Ole Time Religion
How to Dodge Religious Solicitors
It's Saturday morning when, suddenly, you hear a knock at the door.
Everyone you know is either hung over or cleaning house. They all know better than to attempt any contact with you before noon anyway. It can only be one thing. Religious canvassers. Actually, that's two things, since, like snakes, they travel in pairs. You peek out the window, expecting to see two kids who look like IBM recruits.
Instead, you see a pudgy old lady in a faded print dress, attended by a skinny teenage girl with stringy hair and more freckles than a trout. The girl glances nervously at the slit in the curtain and quickly looks away.
Girl Scout cookies?
Raffle tickets?
Opening the door out of curiosity, you become the proud owner of a copy of their tract. It was the girl who fooled you. You never figured they'd bring a kid along. You rack your brains for some gracious means of escape, making a silent resolution that next time you'll follow your nstinct to stand motionless in the middle of the living room hoping that protective coloration will render you invisible.
Rack your brains no longer! After years of similar experiences, I have developed several techniques for turning those agonizing encounters into hours of entertainment. Here are just a few of the great techniques you can use:
1. Listen for a minute or two with a polite but puzzled expression and then speak in a foreign language. Better yet, make one up. Brand names for electronic components serve as an excellent base for an impromptu language. I've found the following bit to be an excellent opener:
'Fritzen mitsuba micht sony leam spartinza. Nakamichi shpont olufsen takamine. Cheloken eraza fleecht?'
2. Before you open the door, put on a pair of Groucho glasses and pour some Pine Sol in a coffee cup. Then attempt to engage them in a serious debate, spreading Pine Sol fumes by blowing occasionally into the cup as if you are cooling it. See how long you can hold them. Try to remember not to drink out of the cup.
3. Pretend to be deaf. Point to your ears, shake your head, and make intricate movements with your fingers and hands. This can backfire if they happen to know sign language. In that case, switch to being blind.
4. Ask them if they are from the health board about the hepatitis quarantine. Offer them a sip of your coffee.
5. Tell them you are not allowed to talk to strangers until the assault case has come to trial. More effective if you come to the door with a knife or a baseball bat.
6. Using a cordless phone, call someone you haven't talked to for a while. Then go to the door and make gestures like you'll only be a minute. See how long they stay.
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