ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605130096
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: GRAFTON, W. VA.
SOURCE: DAVID SHARP ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANNA JARVIS would have preferred sons and daughters honor Mom with a new pair of shoes or a new mattress.
The mother of Mother's Day would not like your plans for a store-bought card for Mom.
``A maudlin, insincere card ... means nothing except that you're too lazy to write,'' Anna Jarvis once said.
What about candy?
``Candy is junk!''
Jarvis, a teacher, was appalled to see what had become of her Mother's Day by the end of World War II. She died in 1948 after fighting the commercialization of the day she established.
``She created it, and then it was basically taken out of her hands,'' said Betty Hayhurst, director of the International Mother's Day Shrine, located at a former Methodist church that Jarvis - who never married or had children - attended.
The 123-year-old shrine with hand-carved pews and stained-glass windows will come alive today, as it does every Mother's Day. Mothers will wear carnations just like in the original service in 1908, and 80 students will give a concert.
Americans are expected to send about 150 million greeting cards for Mother's Day, and $145 million worth of flowers and plants will be delivered nationwide, trade groups said. Hallmark alone produces 1,400 different Mother's Day cards.
But Jarvis railed against confectioners, florists and card printers, and was known to pop up at meetings to wag her finger at them.
``A maudlin, insincere printed card or a ready-made telegram means nothing except that you're too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone else in the world,'' she told The National Observer, a now-defunct newspaper.
She also said ``Candy is junk'' and, ``Flowers are about half-dead by the time they're delivered.''
She suggested useful gifts for mothers.
``A lot of mothers are sleeping on beds that are as hard as rocks,'' she said. ``Maybe she needs new eyeglasses, comfortable shoes.''
It all started with Jarvis' mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, who helped organize Mother's Day Work Clubs to clean unsanitary living conditions that contributed to childhood disease. Eight of her 12 children died before reaching adulthood.
The elder Jarvis also cared for soldiers during the Civil War. Later, she organized a ``Mother's Friendship Day'' to reunite families after the war.
She died in 1905 in Philadelphia before she realized her dream of a national holiday. Her daughter picked up the torch.
``She felt great remorse that she hadn't done more for her mother,'' said William Pollard, archivist at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va., which Jarvis attended.
Jarvis inundated politicians and newspapers with letters calling for a national holiday.
She finally persuaded John Wanamaker, a Philadelphia merchant and philanthropist, to support her in her quest. Wanamaker later became part of a committee, along with food manufacturer H.J. Heinz, that mapped out a program to extend Mother's Day around the world.
West Virginia declared it an official holiday in 1910. Congress followed in 1914 in a declaration signed by President Wilson.
Although the national holiday can be traced to Jarvis, in part through a patent she filed, she was not the first to propose a day for mothers.
Julia Ward Howe, composer of ``The Battle Hymn of the Republic,'' is also credited with the idea. And Mary Towles Sasseen, a schoolteacher from Henderson, Ky., in 1887 started a local program to honor mothers.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP file/1928 Anna Jarvis, who attended Mary Baldwinby CNBCollege, promoted a noncommercial holiday.