Happy Mother's Day

Hi Puzzlers,

Sunday May 8th is Mother’s Day, the one day a year set aside to honor those women who wiped our noses and helped us grow to into the wonderful people we are. Cultures across the globe have been honoring motherhood since antiquity. In ancient times only goddesses, mythological female deities and the Christian church was honored. The recognition of the human mother has come about only in the last few centuries.

The ancient Greeks dedicated the annual spring festival to Rhea the mother of many Gods, while the ancient Egyptians held an annual festival to honor Isis, she was considered the mother of the pharaohs. These celebrations would last several days with parades, games, decorations and food.

Prior to the 1600s, European Christians celebrated Lent and the Mother Church on the fourth Sunday during Lent. Christians would honor the church they were baptized in. It was know to them as their Mother Church and they would decorate it with jewels, flowers and other offerings.

In the 1600s a clerical decree allowed for the broadening of the celebration to include human mothers and declared it a day of Mothering, or Mothering Day. It was a day when servants and trade workers had permission to take the day off and go home to visit their families and honor their mothers. It also allowed for a one-day break from the penance of Lent. Mothers would traditionally receive flowers and cakes.

When British colonists came to America they chose, many believe because of the harsh living conditions, not to celebrate Mothering Day. Centuries later Appalachian homemaker Anna Jarvis, “organized a day to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers. She called it ‘Mother's Work Day.’ Fifteen years later, Julia Ward Howe, author of the lyrics to the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ organized a day to encourage mothers to rally for peace. Julia believed “mothers bore the loss of human life more harshly than anyone else.”

Anna Jarvis died in 1905 and her daughter, also named Anna, vigilantly continued campaigning for her mother. Finally in 1914, eight years later, Woodrow Wilson signed a bill making Mother’s Day a national holiday!

Happy Puzzling!