Mothers' Day Work Clubs
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. -- Romans 12:2
Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis was born in Culpeper, Virginia, in 1832, and she found her life's calling in the poverty, disease, and hardship of rural Appalachia. Jarvis' father was a Methodist minister, and she married the son of a Baptist minister, spending many of her years teaching and lecturing at local churches and organizations.
Like many of the women of her era, Jarvis bore 13 children in just 17 years, and only 4 of those children survived to adulthood. The others died of such common diseases as diphtheria, typhoid fever, and measles, and these painful losses inspired Jarives to seek out ways to help her community combat childhood diseases and infant mortality.
In 1858, while pregnant with her sixth child, Jarvies started Mothers' Day Work Clubs in an effort to address public health issues and provide education to mothers in rural Appalachia. The clubs raised money for medicine and in-home assistance for those families whose mothers were suffering from tuberculosis and other epidemic diseases, and they even developed processes for inspecting milk long before state and federal guidelines.
As Jarvis and her Mothers' Day Work Clubs tackled the issues plaguing their communities, their efforts created a ripple effect, spreading hope and solidarity throughout the region. When the Civil War threatened to divide communities irreparably, Jarvis and her club members planned a "Mothers Friendship Day" to unite soldiers and their families from both sides of the conflict. Despite threats of violence, Jarvis continued with her event, as well as lectures on such topics as "Great Mothers of the Bible" and "The Importance of Supervised Recreational Centers for Boys and Girls."
Jarvis' daughter Anna was just 12 years old in 1878 when she heard her mother teach a Sunday school lesson on mothers in the Bible: “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day,” her mother said. “There are many days for men, but none for mothers.”
After Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter Anna began advocating for an official Mother's Day holiday as a way to honor her mother's perseverance and the sacrifices of all mothers. Anna poured out a stream of letters to men in high places, including President William Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt, and eventually her efforts were successful.
Anna Jarvis organized the first official Mother's Day celebration on May 10, 1908, in Grafton, West Virginia, and later campaigned for Mother's Day to be recognized nationally. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day, a national holiday to honor mothers and motherhood.
The changes that the elder Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis sought may seem self-evident today -- boiling drinking water, for example -- but in the mid-nineteenth century, Jarvis' efforts were remarkably counter-cultural. She did not conform to her world, continuing the practices that were clearly harmful, but instead was transformed by a renewing of her mind, allowing the Lord to inspire her with new ideas and protect her from the angry challengers that threatened to derail her.
Whether Mother's Day for you is a day of celebration or a day of reflection, lean into Jarvis' story of determination and grit, of faith and tireless creativity. What is the Lord calling you to that will bring light and joy to those around you?