By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)–Although the roots of celebrations and feast days can be traced back to ancient Greek and Roman times, the more recent history of Mother’s Day started in 17th century England. The fourth Sunday of Lent was set aside to honor mothers. After services devoted to the Virgin Mary, children would present flowers and gifts to their own mothers.
The idea of an official holiday in the United States was Julia Ward Howe’s in 1872. She started rallying mothers against war, and celebrated June 2nd as being dedicated to peace. She brought some notoriety to the effort, as she was the writer of the famous Civil War anthem “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Although she, and others like Anna Jarvis, worked tirelessly to establish a Mother’s Day holiday; it wasn’t until after WWII when commercial enterprises started using it as an occasion for spiking sales. Ms. Jarvis, who never had children of her own - but is nevertheless known as the “Mother of Mother’s Day”, was very hurt to live to see the over commercialization of the holiday.