The Creator of Mother’s Day Boycotted the Commercialized Venture It Became

Ann Reeves Jarvis, and her daughter, Anna Jarvis. The Library of Congress.

Before delving into how things went wrong, we need to know about Anna Jarvis’ mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis.

Ann had twelve children in the late eighteen hundreds. Eight of them died of epidemics and disease before reaching adulthood. While pregnant with child number six, she found time to take on the social problems of the day.