May 13, 2007: Mother's Day

As with most holidays the lineage of our modern American Mother’s Day has its roots in ancient pagan rituals. The Greeks had a custom of mother worship that was specifically dedicated to the goddess Cybele, the personification of the fertile mother earth. A little late, the Romans pretty much adopted Greek religion lock, stock, and barrel. They celebrated a similar feast dedicated to Juno called Matronalia on March 1, which was, coincidentally, the first day of their new year. On this day women would receive gifts from their husbands and daughters, a tradition that, amazingly, seemed to catch on.

Our present holiday was more recently derived from the British holiday called Mothering Sunday. Taking the British custom as her starting point, activist Julia Ward Howe issued a call for woman to become the instruments of peace in this post Civil War era. The author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” penned a Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870 calling for peace and disarmament. Howe never succeeded in getting official recognition of Mother’s Day. That was up to the Appalachian mother/daughter team of Ann and Anna Jarvis. In 1914, largely through their efforts, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first National Mother’s Day. Now it has grown to become one of the most commercially successful holidays in the US. And, according to the National Restaurant Association, the most popular day of the year to dine out!