Mother’s Day is sometimes sneered at as a Hallmark Holiday, but that’s not how it began. Julia Ward Howe called for its institution in 1870 as a war protest that would instead uphold peace and motherhood around the world. The holiday wasn’t made official in the U.S. when it was proposed in 1908, but by 1909 forty-six states were holding Mother’s Day services. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed the holiday into law as the 2nd Sunday in May. In those days white carnations marked the occasion. Today my daughter gave me red tulips, chocolate covered strawberries and a day in a sculpture park.
Jean Zimmerman 