Today is the special day we set aside to honor a group of the most selfless individuals as ever walked the face of the earth - mothers.
Mothers are undoubtedly the hardest-working, most underpaid, underappreciated people we know. Just a few of the many responsibilities they have include keeping house, cooking meals, making sure children get to any number of activities. In addition, they are doctors, pharmacists and psychologists, all rolled into one. And in this day, they are more likely than not taking care of these tasks after working at least eight hours at a job outside the home. They are the first up in the morning and the last to bed in the evening.
And the pay for all of this work? Usually just more work and an occasional "I love you, mom" from their children. But, in most cases, that seems to be more than adequate remuneration.
Mother's Day has special significance in West Virginia. This was the first state to celebrate this special day. In 1907, Anna Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to honor all mothers with a nationwide holiday. Two years after her mother's death, she persuaded parishioners at her mother's church in Grafton, W.Va., to celebrate that day - the second Sunday of May - as a day to honor all mothers. By the next year, people in Jarvis's hometown of Philadelphia also were celebrating Mother's Day.
In 1910, West Virginia's governor made the day an official state holiday by proclaiming the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. By 1911, it was being celebrated in nearly every state. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Mother's Day a national holiday.
A more deserved day we cannot imagine.
In honor of mothers throughout the Mid-Ohio Valley, here are some thoughts from others on this special day.
Honor thy father and mother.
The Fifth Commandment
In all my efforts to learn to read, my mother shared fully my ambition and sympathized with me and aided me in every way she could. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
Booker T. Washington
All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.
Abraham Lincoln
Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.
Lin Yutang
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
Homer de Balzac
By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
Anne Morrow Linbergh
