85 Fun Facts About Mother's Day

Which Philadelphia merchant helped Anna Jarvis launch Mother's Day with a 1908 store ceremony?

John Wanamaker gave Jarvis financial backing and his store auditorium, where she spoke to a reported 15,000 people instead of attending the first church service in her hometown.

The 1914 proclamation that made Mother's Day an official American holiday asked citizens to display what?

The national flag: Congress asked for it on government buildings and homes as 'a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country', and the proclamation followed a day later.

Which U.S. President signed the proclamation officially designating Mother's Day as a national holiday?

Woodrow Wilson signed it on 9 May 1914, a day after Congress asked him to; Anna Jarvis's letter-writing campaign had already persuaded nearly every state to keep the day.

Which flower, her mother's favourite, did Anna Jarvis make the Mother's Day emblem?

Carnation: Ann Reeves Jarvis loved the white bloom, so Anna sent hundreds to the first service; later a coloured one came to mean a living mother and a white one a mother who had died.

Which Mother's Day gift did Anna Jarvis say 'means nothing except that you are too lazy to write' to your mother?

A printed card, Jarvis said, was no substitute for a letter in your own hand, and she spent most of her money suing firms that profited from her holiday.

What was Mother's Day founder Anna Jarvis's own experience of motherhood?

She never had children: Jarvis stayed unmarried all her life and came to the holiday as a daughter, founding it to honour her own mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis.

Which Appalachian state was the first to make Mother's Day an official holiday, in 1910?

West Virginia was Anna Jarvis's home state and made the day official two years after her first service there; within about five years nearly every state was keeping it.

After founding Mother's Day, what did Anna Jarvis spend her final years campaigning to do?

Abolish the holiday: sickened by its commercialisation, Jarvis was organising a petition in 1943 to have Mother's Day rescinded when she was placed in a sanitarium, where she died in 1948.

Which country's 21 March Mother's Day, championed by newspaper editor Mustafa Amin, was later copied across the Arab world?

Egypt took up the day in the 1950s after Amin and his twin brother Ali, both newspaper publishers, championed it; he was later jailed for nine years as an alleged American spy.

Who plays divorced mother Sandy opposite Julia Roberts and Kate Hudson in the 2016 comedy 'Mother's Day'?

Jennifer Aniston plays Sandy, who is still adjusting to her ex-husband's marriage to a much younger woman when she meets a widowed former Marine in the supermarket.

In the United States, Mother's Day holds what distinction among all days of the year?

Most popular day to dine out: the National Restaurant Association's surveys have long ranked it first, a fate that would have appalled founder Anna Jarvis, who fought to keep the day free of commerce.

Before Anna Jarvis's efforts, which activist tried to establish a 'Mother's Day for Peace' in the 1870s?

Julia Ward Howe had written 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' in the early 1860s; the bloodshed she had seen since turned her against war, and in the 1870s she urged mothers to gather each June for peace.

Thailand's Mother's Day, 12 August, is the birthday of which royal?

Sirikit, queen consort to King Bhumibol from 1950, was born on 12 August 1932; Thailand keeps her birthday as a national holiday for mothers, just as the late king's birthday honours fathers.

Britain's Mothering Sunday changes date every year because it is counted back from which festival?

Easter: Mothering Sunday is a Sunday in the middle of Lent, the fast that leads up to Easter, so it moves with it each spring instead of staying in May like the American holiday.

Which country celebrates Mother's Day in its spring, on the third Sunday of October?

Argentina once kept the day on 11 October, the old Catholic feast of the Maternity of Mary; when the Church moved that feast to 1 January, Argentines stayed with October.

What did Ann Reeves Jarvis's 'Mothers' Day Work Clubs' focus on in the 1850s?

Ann Reeves Jarvis founded the Mothers' Day Work Clubs in 1858 to improve public health and sanitation in Taylor County, teaching hygiene to fight the area's high infant mortality; she died in 1905.

Ann Jarvis is said to have staged an 1868 'Mothers' Friendship Day' to reconcile neighbours divided by what?

The Civil War had split her county, and Jarvis had kept her Mothers' Day Work Clubs neutral, nursing Union and Confederate soldiers alike, before the reunion brought veterans of the two armies together.

Which country's Mother's Day, 27 May, honours the women who died defending Cochabamba from Spanish troops in 1812?

Bolivia remembers the Heroínas de la Coronilla, the women who took up arms on San Sebastián hill when royalist troops stormed the city, and were cut down there.

Because it is autumn there in May, which flower is the traditional Mother's Day bloom in Australia?

Chrysanthemums are naturally in season in the Australian autumn; the day itself took off there in the 1920s, after a Sydney woman began collecting gifts for lonely mothers in a state hospital.

Mexico's Día de las Madres is held on which fixed date every year?

10 May took hold after a 1922 campaign by Rafael Alducin's newspaper Excélsior, backed by education minister José Vasconcelos, and unlike the American holiday it never shifts to a Sunday.

In Mexico, it is traditional to open Mother's Day celebrations with which song?

Las Mañanitas is Mexico's traditional birthday song, so mothers get the full birthday serenade, sung a cappella or by a hired mariachi or trio.

Panama celebrates Mother's Day on 8 December, the same day as which Catholic feast?

The Immaculate Conception: Panama first tried a May date in 1924, then in 1930 moved the day to the Marian feast on 8 December after an appeal made through the president's wife.

Indonesia's Hari Ibu on 22 December marks the anniversary of what 1928 event?

The first Indonesian Women Congress opened in Yogyakarta on 22 December 1928 and pressed for better terms for women in marriage and for girls' education; its opening day later became Hari Ibu.

Sweden celebrates Mother's Day on which day of the year?

Sweden has marked Mother's Day on the last Sunday in May since 1919, when the author Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg introduced the idea from abroad.

In 1931 a Japanese women's league set Mother's Day on the birthday of which figure?

The reigning empress: Kōjun, wife of Emperor Hirohito, was born on 6 March; the American-style May Sunday replaced the date after the war.

Which country's Dzień Matki falls on 26 May every year, whatever the day of the week?

Poland keeps Dzień Matki on a fixed calendar date, so it lands midweek most years instead of on the May Sunday that most of Europe uses.

Nepal's Mata Tirtha Aunsi, tied to a legend about a sacred pond, is popularly known by what name?

Day to see mother's face: in legend a son saw his dead mother's face in the pond at Mata Tirtha, and the bereaved still go there hoping to see theirs.

Rather than a separate Mother's Day, South Korea marks which holiday on 8 May?

Parents' Day replaced South Korea's 8 May Mother's Day in 1973 so that fathers were honoured too; Children's Day falls three days earlier, on 5 May.

Which organization did Anna Jarvis create in 1912 to police the holiday she founded?

Anna Jarvis incorporated the Mother's Day International Association in 1912, the same year she trademarked 'Mother's Day' and 'second Sunday in May', to defend the holiday's name against merchants and copycats.

Which painting appeared on the 1934 US postage stamp issued 'in memory and in honor of the mothers of America'?

Whistler's Mother: the Post Office engraved a detail of the 1871 portrait, long an American icon of motherhood, although the painter had titled it an 'Arrangement in Grey and Black'.

Which country's dictator Anastasio Somoza fixed Mother's Day on 30 May, the birthday of his wife's mother?

Nicaragua has kept 30 May since the early 1940s: it was the birthday of Casimira Sacasa, whose daughter had married Somoza García, and the date outlasted the family's rule.

In Belgium, people around which city celebrate Mother's Day on 15 August rather than in May?

Around Antwerp, Moederkesdag is kept on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption, a tradition locals regard as the authentic one; the rest of Belgium uses the second Sunday of May.

Brazil's first Mother's Day in 1918 was promoted by the Porto Alegre branch of which organization?

The Associação Cristã de Moços, the YMCA's Porto Alegre branch, held Brazil's first Mother's Day on 12 May 1918; President Getúlio Vargas made the second Sunday of May official in 1932.

The Dutch branch of which organization first brought Mother's Day to the Netherlands?

The Salvation Army's Dutch branch introduced the day, but it barely caught on until commercial campaigns took it up in the mid-1920s.

Which Central American country keeps Mother's Day on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption, as a national holiday?

Costa Rica ties the day to the Assumption of Mary, so one public holiday honours both the mother of Jesus and the country's own mothers instead of a May Sunday.

Which former Soviet republic marks Mother's Day on 14 October, the Orthodox feast of the Protection of the Mother of God?

Belarus created the day in 1996; until then, like other ex-Soviet republics, it had no separate day for mothers.

Which country's first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, created a 3 March Mother's Day in 1991?

Georgia's new day was meant to break with the Soviet calendar, but Georgians kept the old March holiday too and now celebrate both.

On Mother's Day 2000, the Million Mom March rallied on Washington's National Mall for stricter laws on what?

Guns: hundreds of thousands gathered that Sunday for tighter gun laws, while a far smaller group of pro-gun women staged a counter-rally the same day.

Which Italian town's parish priest, Otello Migliosi, launched a Mother's Day on 12 May 1957?

Assisi: Otello Migliosi, parish priest of nearby Tordibetto, held the celebration on 12 May 1957 to honour motherhood's religious value, and within a year the idea was spreading across Italy.

Paraguay's Mother's Day on 15 May shares its date with which national observance?

Independence day: Paraguayans mark the May 1811 break with Spain and Mother's Day together, a pairing often explained by the idea of the homeland as the mother country.

In Thailand, garlands of which fragrant white flower are the traditional Mother's Day gift?

Jasmine stands for a mother's unconditional love in Thailand, so children hand garlands of it to their mothers.

Mothering Sunday in the UK, once called Mid-Lent Sunday, falls on which Sunday of Lent?

Fourth: it shares the day with Laetare Sunday, when the Lenten fast was relaxed and people went back to the 'mother church' where they had been baptised.

Which fruit-filled bake is the traditional Mothering Sunday gift in Britain?

Simnel cake, a light fruit cake layered with marzipan, was the gift that servants and apprentices carried home to their mothers on their day off.

Russia and several other ex-Soviet countries traditionally honour mothers on 8 March, a date better known as what?

International Women's Day became a Soviet holiday after a women's strike in Petrograd on that date in 1917 helped set off the revolution that toppled the tsar.

France moves its Fête des Mères from late May to June when the day would clash with which Christian feast?

Pentecost: a 1950 law puts the day on the final Sunday of May unless that is Pentecost Sunday, in which case French mothers wait until the first Sunday of June.

Israel's traditional Mother's Day on 30 Shevat marked the death of which Hadassah founder?

Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah and head of Youth Aliyah, died on 30 Shevat 5705 (13 February 1945); childless herself, she was honoured as the mother of the thousands of children Youth Aliyah rescued.

A Mother's Day sermon in 1909 inspired Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane to campaign for which holiday?

Father's Day: Dodd wanted the same honour for her widowed father, an army veteran who had raised his children alone, and Spokane held the first celebration in June 1910.

Which organisation took up Mother's Day in Hungary in 1925 and spread it nationwide?

The Hungarian Red Cross Youth took up the day in 1925, tied it to May's devotions to the Virgin Mary and had teachers bring it to pupils across the country.

Mary Towles Sasseen's 1887 plan for a Mother's Day in Kentucky was built around which institutions?

Schools: Sasseen, a young principal in Henderson, wrote a guide of songs, poems and readings so other schools could hold receptions for mothers.

Who led a Mother's Day march in Washington in 1968 on behalf of poor women and children?

Coretta Scott King led thousands of women on 12 May 1968, five weeks after her husband's assassination, as the first wave of the Poor People's Campaign he had planned.

Anna Jarvis said her inspiration came when her mother ended what with a prayer in 1876?

A Sunday school lesson: twelve-year-old Anna heard her mother pray that 'someone, sometime' would found a memorial mothers' day, and when Ann died in 1905 she vowed to make it happen.

According to legend, who paid part of Anna Jarvis's sanitarium bills in her final years?

Florists are said to have paid, the very trade she had spent her inheritance fighting, though her biographer has never been able to confirm the story.

Which US observance honours mothers of fallen service members on the last Sunday of September?

Gold Star Mother's Day, created by a joint resolution signed on 23 June 1936, falls on the last Sunday of September; the gold star recalls the service flag symbol for a family member killed in war.

In 1908 the US Congress rejected the holiday, joking it would also have to proclaim what?

Mother-in-law's Day was the joke as the proposal was shelved in 1908; six years later Congress passed its resolution and the president proclaimed the holiday the next day.

Which phrase for manufactured, commercial holidays became attached to Mother's Day?

Hallmark holiday became the label; by the early 1920s Hallmark Cards and others were selling Mother's Day cards, and Jarvis organised boycotts and threatened lawsuits in response.

In 1934 which US president personally designed the postage stamp commemorating the holiday?

Franklin D. Roosevelt, a keen stamp collector, sketched the design himself; Anna Jarvis thought it ugly and made sure the words 'Mother's Day' never appeared on the stamp.

Frank E. Hering's 1904 plea for a national day for mothers was addressed to which group?

Hering, a former Notre Dame football coach, made the plea at a Fraternal Order of Eagles gathering in Indianapolis in February 1904, four years before Anna Jarvis's first service; Jarvis later denounced him as an impostor.

Frank Hering traced his idea for a mothers' day to watching his Notre Dame students do what?

Write home to their mothers: Hering, who taught English and coached football there, said every boy's 'sweetheart' was his mother, and that reminding him of her happiness brought out his best work.

What title did the American War Mothers' 1929 medal confer on Frank Hering?

Father of Mother's Day: the honour infuriated Anna Jarvis, who sneered that 'anyone can buy a medal and give it to any person they please' and called Hering an impostor to the end of her life.

An 1877 observance for mothers in Albion, Michigan, grew from a dispute tied to which movement?

Temperance: in the local legend, Juliet Calhoun Blakeley finished the sermon after anti-temperance men had forced the pastor's son to get drunk at gunpoint, and her sons later pressed for a yearly tribute to mothers.

Ann Jarvis's 1868 Mothers' Friendship Day is said to have ended with everyone singing which song?

Auld Lang Syne is said to have closed the reunion, after bands had played both 'Dixie' and 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and many in the crowd had been moved to tears.

The 1870 'Appeal to womanhood throughout the world' was prompted in part by which European war of that year?

Franco-Prussian War: appalled by its carnage, the appeal's author called for 'a general congress of women, without limit of nationality' to settle international questions without bloodshed.

The Methodist church that hosted the first Mother's Day service in 1908 is now the International Mother's Day what?

Shrine: the church took the title in 1962, though Anna Jarvis never attended the first service there, sending a telegram and 500 flowers from Philadelphia instead.

Why did Anna Jarvis choose the second Sunday in May for the holiday?

Anniversary of her mother's death: Ann Reeves Jarvis died on 9 May 1905, and the second Sunday of the month always falls within a few days of that date.

Only Christmas and which other holiday beat Mother's Day for greeting cards sent in the United States?

Valentine's Day: the card trade ranks Mother's Day third, with well over 100 million cards a year, a boom that began when firms started selling Mother's Day cards in the early 1920s.

Russia's Day of Mothers, created in 1998, falls on the last Sunday of which month?

November: Boris Yeltsin created the day by decree in January 1998, though Russians had long honoured their mothers on 8 March, a habit kept from Soviet times.

Vietnam's Vu Lan festival for mothers shares its date with the Ghost Festival, in which lunar month?

Seventh: Vu Lan falls on the fifteenth day of that month and recalls the monk Maudgalyayana, who made offerings to free his dead mother from torment as a hungry ghost.

Which spring bloom did British children traditionally gather for mothers on Mothering Sunday?

Children walking home for Mothering Sunday picked wild violets from the hedgerows to give their mothers; many churches later handed out posies of flowers for children to present.

The 11 marzipan balls on a Mothering Sunday fruitcake stand for the apostles minus whom?

Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, gets no ball; some bakers add a twelfth for Jesus, and a second layer of almond paste is baked into the middle of the cake.

The Latin name of Laetare Sunday, when Mothering Sunday falls, is an imperative meaning what?

'Laetare' means 'Rejoice', the opening word of the day's introit 'Laetare Jerusalem' ('Rejoice, O Jerusalem') from Isaiah 66; the relaxed mood gave the Sunday its name.

On Laetare Sunday, priests may swap Lenten violet vestments for which colour?

Rose vestments gave the day one of its old names, Rose Sunday, which may also recall the Golden Rose that popes blessed at this time and sent to Catholic sovereigns.

Because of its traditional Gospel miracle, Laetare Sunday was once called the Sunday of the what?

The old Gospel for Laetare Sunday was the feeding of the five thousand from five loaves and two fish, so the day was also called the Sunday of the Five Loaves; the reading underlies the tradition of cake gifts.

Nazi Germany's Cross of Honour of the German Mother gave which class to women with eight or more children?

Gold: to push up the birth rate the regime handed out bronze, silver and gold crosses by family size, first on Mother's Day 1939, and barred Jewish mothers from the award.

In 1941 which French leader's wartime government used the holiday to promote larger families?

Marshal Philippe Pétain's Vichy government promoted the 1941 Fête des Mères to encourage larger families, honouring all mothers for the first time rather than only those of large families, as the 1920 day had.

Taiwan's second-Sunday-in-May Mother's Day coincides with which other celebration?

Taiwan's government fixed Buddha's Birthday on the second Sunday of May in 1999, so it coincides with Mother's Day; the Tzu Chi Foundation marks Buddha Day, Mother's Day and Tzu Chi Day together.

Iran's Mother's Day falls on the birthday of which figure in the Islamic calendar?

Fatimah, the Prophet Muhammad's daughter, is honoured on 20 Jumada al-Thani, the date Shia tradition gives for her birth; Iran moved Mother's Day there from 16 December after the 1979 revolution.

Norway's first Mother's Day, in 1919, was held in which month?

Norway held its first Morsdag on 9 February 1919, organised by religious groups; the day has remained on the second Sunday of February, typically marked with breakfast in bed, flowers and cake.

A 1930s Dutch advertising slogan paired Mother's Day with what?

Flowers' Day: the mid-1930s slogan 'Moederdag – Bloemendag' came from the Dutch horticultural trade, which had been promoting the holiday since the 1920s to lift its sales.

On Materice, Serbia's pre-Christmas day for mothers, children playfully tie up their mother until she does what?

Gives them presents: she plays along, pretending not to know why she is bound, then buys her freedom with gifts; a week earlier the adults had tied up the children.

In which Nordic country is Mother's Day an official flag day?

Finland flies the flag for its mothers on the second Sunday of May, and each year the president presents medals to a group of mothers for exceptional work.

In Samoa, Mother's Day is on the second Sunday of May, with a national holiday on which day?

The following Monday: the day itself always lands on a Sunday, so Samoa shifts the public holiday to the next day, and does the same for its fathers in August.

Which 2011 film was the second of Garry Marshall's ensemble holiday comedies, before 'Mother's Day' in 2016?

New Year's Eve used the same recipe as Mother's Day, a crowd of stars in loosely linked stories set on one holiday; critics panned all of Marshall's holiday films, and Mother's Day was his last.

Who plays the title matriarch in the 2010 horror remake 'Mother's Day'?

Rebecca De Mornay plays Natalie 'Mother' Koffin in Darren Lynn Bousman's 2010 remake; she takes charge after her bank-robber sons hold the new owners of their foreclosed family home hostage.

The Anglo-Saxon 'Night of the Mothers', Mōdraniht, is attested solely by which medieval historian?

Bede records Mōdraniht in De temporum ratione (725), placing it on the night before 25 December; his is the only surviving reference, and scholars link it to Germanic mother-goddess cults.

The Roman Hilaria festival on 25 March honoured which 'mother of the gods'?

The Hilaria on 25 March was part of the spring festival of Cybele, the Phrygian Magna Mater, celebrating the resurrection of Attis; masquerades were the main amusement, anyone free to dress as whomever they liked.