The History of Mother's Day

Although there are others who claim to have started Mother's Day. It was Frank E. Hering, a Past Grand Worthy President of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, that made the first known public plea for a national day to honor our mothers. And it was Frank E. Hering who in 1925 was invited by the "Society of War Mothers" to participate in a special Mother's Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. There, at the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier", before a tremendous audience that included many congressmen and senators, Hering was introduced as "the Father of Mother's Day."

But that was over 21 years after Hering's first public plea, and 11 years after President Woodrow Wilson by Proclamation officially made Mother's Day the second Sunday in May. And many things happened during that span of time. A lot of hard work, a lot of other people trying to take the credit, and even an article by Hering himself titled......

"NOW WE FIGHT!"

That was the headline over the Mother's Day editorial in a decades-ago issue of Eagle Magazine.

The Mother's Day editorial? And what in the world could there have been to fight about on a national holiday dedicated to dear old Mom? It was the fact, grumbled the editorial, that "organizations and individuals are grasping at the honor that belongs to the F.O.E. for internationally sponsoring this memorial."

"A Past Grand Worthy President of our Order," continued the editorial, "made the first public plea of record for a national day of honor for mothers. For years and years we have conducted the only nationwide organized effort in behalf of the day. Shall we let others capitalize on our work?"

"Shall we let them wear the glory that is ours?"

"Shall we let them lead the public to believe that they first carried the movement through state after state from coast to coast?"

The answer, of course, was obvious, but the editorial's conclusion spelled it out anyway:

"Through the early years, we carried on alone. No other nationwide organization aided us. We nationally popularized the day. We can and will hold our distinction against the propaganda of those who want the glory without having done the work. In every community, our efforts must now be made to make known the truth of our pioneering work."

THE AUTHOR of those fighting words were Frank E. Hering. He knew whereof he spoke, because the Grand Worthy President who had made that "first public plea of record for a national day of honor for Mothers" was -- Frank E. Hering.

The idea had first come to him as a faculty member of the University of Notre Dame, in his hometown of South Bend Indiana. Walking into a classroom of a fellow instructor, Hering found his colleague distributing penny postcards to the students there. They addressed the cards and began to scribble messages on them.

"What are they writing?" inquired the bemused Hering of his faculty mate.

"Anything," replied the other, "Anything at all as long as it's to their mothers."

A light bulb went on in Frank Hering's head. And the idea for a SPECIAL DAY that would provide some sort of FORMAL RECOGNITION FOR MOTHERS continued to burn there. Hering was involving himself more and more in an organization that had begun just a few years before on the waterfront in Seattle and was catching on all over the country - the Fraternal Order of Eagles. By 1904, Hering was a past officer of the Aerie in South Bend.

On February 7th of that year, he was the Main speaker at a memorial sponsored by Indianapolis Aerie #211, at the English Opera House. It was there that he first verbalized publicly his idea of a "national day of honor for Mothers."

Shortly thereafter Hering became a national officer, eventually becoming Grand Worthy President in 1909 and again in 1911. All through these years in his travels across the country his plea for a national Mother's Day was a standard feature of his appearances at Eagle functions and occasions. In 1912, he submitted to the Grand Aerie, a recommendation that local Aeries be given an opportunity to hold Mother's Day exercises "on any Sunday during the year." Approval was swift, and individual Aeries throughout the land began to carry the torch for Mother's Day.

LEGISLATION was introduced in the U.S. congress by 1914, requesting a presidential proclamation making the second Sunday in May (a date urged by Anna Jarvis, another crusader for a memorial day for mothers) Mother's day throughout the country. President Woodrow Wilson went along with the idea, and May 10, 1914 became the first official Mother's Day.