I'm Anna Jarvis, that's J-A-R-V-I, as in Isaac, S. Anna Jarvis.
I was born May 1st, 1864 in West Virginia and I founded the holiday known colloquially
as Mother's Day.
And why did you want to dedicate a holiday to mother's?
Well I would like to make a correction, it's not that I wanted to dedicate a holiday to
mothers plural, because if you notice that Mother's Day is 'Mother' apostrophe 'S'.
Singular possessive of one mother.
I wanted to make a day to dedicate to my mother Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis because she was a
paragon of motherhood.
During the Civil War worked with other mothers who had lost their sons on both the Union
and the Confederate sides.
I wanted to give my mother a day for that, one Sunday which should have been on her birthday
but the preacher couldn't get a sermon together in time so we had to push it one week.
So now it's the second Sunday in May.
It's always chafed me a bit.
Let's start with these carnations.
I'm wearing a white carnation to commemorate my mother who has passed God rest her soul.
If your mother is still alive you do not wear a white carnation unless you have some sort
of sick death wish for her.
You wear a red carnation to commemorate that she is still living, that her blood in her
veins is still active.
You then go to church.
You listen to an uplifting sermon about mothers and you do not, I repeat do not, go to any
sort of Mother's Day brunch specials.
You go home.
You go home and spend it with your mother who birthed you out of her own birthing canal.
And you're quiet.
You make things nice for you mother for one day.
One day.
That's all you have to do.
This is what I call a traditional Mother's Day.
Just a mother and a daughter celebrating their relationship, no brunches, no fuss.
Just a homemade traditional mothering Sunday cake.
It's like a fruit cake but with balls on top of it.
Some carnations to commemorate you.
Oh mother I wish you were still here, let's enjoy some cake though.
Don't tell my hips.
I just took a generous piece.
None of those brunches.
This is what Mother's Day should have been.
I didn't want to be asked about this.
Where'd you find this information?
It's on your tumblr.
My tumblr, you mean smothermothersday.tumblr.com.
Who wouldn't want to follow a tumblr like this.
I'd reblog that.
That was a rogue comment left on there.
1925 I was arrested on a cooked up charge of disturbing the peace but the fact of the
matter is that my peace was disturbed because the American War Mother's Association was
trying to co-opt Mother's Day to sell, you guessed it, carnations to fundraise.
The fact that Americans today spend on average $140 on Mother's Day makes me sick to my stomach.
I don't know if you can see it on camera but it's giving me a rash.
A printed card means nothing more than you were too lazy to write to the one woman who
has done more for you than anyone else in the world.
Direct quote: Anna Jarvis.
That's a very difficult question to ask.
Sometimes to myself I look in the mirror and I say, 'Anna, do you wish you had never founded
Mother's Day?'
You've been arrested for disturbing the peace.
You got a lot of flack in 1934 when you petitioned successfully the US Postal office to not use
the phrase Mother's Day on a three-cent stamp commemorating the painting 'Whistler's Mother'.
A lot of negative flack for that.
But you know what?
I realize every time I see a photo of my mother, god rest her soul, whether people know it
or not, one day a year everyone's celebrating my mother.
But the sick part is that it's been taken over by big brunch.
Big flower bouquet.
Big card.
These predatory purveyors of Mother's Day sentiments make me sick.
That's a strong point to make Ms. Jarvis--I'm a strong woman!
Let's end the interview on an upnote--I'd like that, I'm usually a very optimistic and
cheerful person.
By this point it's the 1940s, I've incorporated myself as the International Mother's Day Association,
so I'm essentially like a corporate entity and I took it upon myself to shut down the
flower sales by handing out celluloid buttons with images of flowers on them that women
could wear instead of actually holding bouquets of flowers in their hands and that year flower
sales for Mother's Day dropped by 11.45%.
I have that percentage embroidered and up on my wall as a needlework.
I won.
I won that battle.
Try to get one over Anna Jarvis.
Have to wake up pretty early.
Have to wake up in 1864 when I was born.