This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

A Meaningful Mother's Day

Learn about the origins of Mother's Day and how you can celebrate the holiday by helping others.

The first American Mother's Day was in 1870, created by suffragist and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe.

Howe is most remembered for writing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, but after witnessing the continuing horrors of the Civil War, she called on women to work towards peace:

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace...

With no political power, and very little sway in commerce, Howe hoped to use women's role as mothers—considered at the time the moral center of the family and the nation—to put an end to killing of their husbands and sons. 

Find out what's happening in Beverly Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Mother's Day became a nationally recognized holiday through the work of Anna Marie Jarvis. Her mother, Ann Jarvis, had also called for mothers to come together during the Civil War. She spent her life providing nursing and sanitation care to people on both sides of the conflict. Her "Mother's Friendship Day" efforts helped to reunite families separated by the war.

Following Ann's death in 1905, Anna wanted to continue the charitable work of her mother, as well as set aside a day when all mothers could be honored. She sought out the church where her mother taught Sunday school to set aside a special day to celebrate mothers, and used carnations—her mother's favorite flower—to mark the day: white to honor mothers who were deceased and red to honor those who were living.

Find out what's happening in Beverly Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This time the holiday took hold. By 1914 it was an official United States holiday, but it had also become commercialized. Anna was not pleased:

I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit.

She opposed the selling of flowers and also the use of greeting cards:

A poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write.

Today, moms are not only remembering the origins of the holiday but using it to work towards the betterment of our communities and the lives of mothers the world over.

In many places motherhood is a dangerous prospect. According to the World Health Organization, 1,000 women die every day because of complications due to pregnancy and birth. Maternal and infant deaths, or debilitating lifelong ailments, often happen because of a lack of basic medical supplies.

Every Mother Counts works to bring an end to these often-preventable deaths all year long. This year they are calling for No Mother's Day, asking moms to be silent to bring attention to the women and girls who have been lost, or to ask their families to donate to help lower maternal mortality rather than buying them gifts.

Bloggers for Birth Kits asks for help assembling simple and inexpensive kits to be sent to Papua New Guinea, where one in seven mothers dies in childbirth.

The Birthing Kit Foundation provides kits the world over. You can make a donation in honor of a mother in your life and they will send a handwritten card telling the recipient how the gift is helping.

At Amnesty International you can send cards to world leaders, including our own, asking them to make reducing maternal mortality a priority. 

Please keep in mind the many ways mothers can work together to make the world and the lives of other mothers and their children better.

This piece first appeared on Alameda Patch.

Be sure to follow Beverly Hills Patch on Twitter and "Like" us on Facebook.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?