By whatever means, honor Mom on Sunday

It's the biggest day for mailing greeting cards, and the most popular Sunday for dining out in a restaurant.

The most negligent sons and daughters among us seem to find a way to honor our mothers on Mother's Day, or feel a twinge of guilt if we don't or no longer have the opportunity.

While we are expected to have warm, fuzzy feelings about the second Sunday in May, the story of the holiday isn't that simple.

In fact, the founder of the modern American Mother's Day became so disenchanted with the holiday and its commercialization, that she became a major opponent of the way it was celebrated only nine years after its founding.

The origins of Mother's Day are somewhat murky, with some believing the day has its roots in mother worship in ancient Greece. A festival to Cybele, a mother of gods and the wife of Cronus, was observed near the Vernal Equinox around Asia Minor and eventually in Rome, near the Ides of March (March 15 to 18). Another Roman holiday, Matronalia, was dedicated to?Juno, but mothers were usually given gifts on that day.

By 1858, Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker, saw squalor and filth, and responded in a typically motherly way, going to work to change things.

She organized what she called "Mothers' Work Days," and when the Civil War broke out, organized women to work for better sanitary conditions for soldiers of both sides, and after the war, worked to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.

After she died, her daughter, Anna, organized the first Mother's Day in Grafton, W. Va., on May 10, 1908, in the church where her mother had taught Sunday School.

By 1912, the holiday was recognized by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and from there spread to 45 states.

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

But by 1920, the holiday was so commercialized that Anna Jarvis incorporated herself as the Mother's Day International Association, claimed copyright on the second Sunday of May, and was once arrested for disturbing the peace.

According to Wikipedia, she and her sister, Ellsinore, spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday, and died in poverty. She was especially embittered against printed greeting cards, according to her New York Times obituary, calling them "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write."

We agree, a personal touch is best when it comes to honoring our mothers, but we won't go so far as saying a commercially printed card is taboo.

Still, we're sure a kind word, personal gesture or day off from cooking will go far toward making Mom feel appreciated.