“One of the Picturesque Observances of Modern Life”: Celebrating Mother’s Day in Greater Los Angeles, 9 May 1915

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

A prior post here by Art Lizotte covered the establishment of the national observance of Mother’s Day in 1909 and this one looks at the celebration of the holiday in greater Los Angeles a half dozen years later. A crucial and obvious difference between the intent and practice of the early observances and those of today was that the commercialism that is now inherent in most holidays, whether involving gifts, greeting cards or the general “holiday sale,” was not part of the concept developed by Anna Jarvis.

Jarvis, whose idea for the holiday stemmed from a desire to honor her mother and all mothers, was so embittered by its commercial turn after proposing it to be held the second Sunday of May and thereby be intrinsically religious, that nearly three decades after President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day a national holiday in 1914, she fought to have it rescinded. Ironically, she died in 1948 supported by the florists and greeting card companies who profited handsomely from the day, but which she loathed.

The highlighted object for this post, a very recent acquisition that is from 1915, is a postcard, published by an Indianapolis firm and with preprinting stating that the holiday “will be observed next Sunday” this being 9 May, and that “this cordial invitation to attend” an event written below “includes your friends” as the senders “sincerely trust you will arrange to be present.”

The recipient was a woman residing in the Los Angeles neighborhood of East Los Angeles, the first suburban tract in the Angel City when established some four decades prior, and sent to her by the East Los Angeles Congregational Church and its Sunday School, at which “there will be a short program [at] 10:30.” The neighborhood is now Lincoln Heights and, as this was at a religious institution, it can be assumed that Jarvis would have approved. The front has an image of a white-haired woman, the holiday’s name and a short, simple verse,

To Honor Our Mothers

Just one such kindly face,

A heart so filled with grace,

Gift of the One above,

A mother and her love.

Also following the precepts laid down by Jarvis, those celebrations of the holiday in greater Los Angeles in 1915 were almost entirely focused on religious events with an almost complete absence of commercialism, save for another element that was part of the original idea, this being the distribution of flowers. Even this, in one notable case, involved a prominent department store and a free offer, as we’ll soon see.

At the start of May, an editorial in the Monrovia News remarked that “the organization of mothers is world-wide, but the movement is more backward in our own country than in most of the other great nations.” This specifically concerned the Mothers’ Congress concept and it was noted that the San Gabriel Valley foothill town, of which its early history was a topic of a recent post here, had an active chapter of the organization which was for “the promotion of the study of childhood’s needs and for the advancement of child welfare.”

The piece went on to observe that “all mothers are beginning to take a deep and active interest in this movement, realizing that . . . very little scientific attention by organized bodies has been given to humankind in the early stages of development.” For its part, the News informed readers that its edition on the 9th was to be a special one for Mothers’ Day and “be devoted exclusively to the interests of the day from the point of view of the parent-teacher associations and the members of the Mothers’ Congress.” Finally, it concluded, “this is not a money-making enterprise, but is undertaken solely for the advantage of the cause which it represents.”

On the 3rd, the Los Angeles Express briefly and generally observed that on the holiday “many of the churches and [women’s] clubs are planning to celebrate the occasion with appropriate sermons and addresses,” conforming, again, to Jarvis’ concept. A significant part of the observance was addressed in that,

It is proposed by some of the clubwomen that the day shall include a visit to living mothers and a tribute to those who have passed on. Many will mark the day by doing some particular little deed of kindness to someone else’s mother, visiting those who are shut in [confined at home] and carrying flowers and smiles to the sick or unhappy.

In a similar vein, the Pasadena Star of the same day, reported that the Crown City’s First Congregational Church requested that “all attending the services” on the Sunday holiday “are asked to wear flowers, white if the mother honored has died, and flowers of another color if she is still living.”

Two days later, the Pomona Progress Bulletin noted that “special services in honor of Mother’s Day will be held in the Narod Union Church” including a prayer and sermon on motherhood by Dr. David Beaton, while Mrs. William Laidlaw was to sing “Memories of Mother” and “The Songs That Mother Sang.” The Mothers’ Department, perhaps tied to that Congress mentioned above, were to read scriptural verses and sing, with a junior group to perform “a special number, ‘Mothers of Men,'” and three recitations offered, as well. As for that community, check out this explanation of its history.

Out in the seaside town, then an independent one, of Venice, its Vanguard, also of the 5th, offered a lengthy exposition on “Woman and Laws” focusing on Mrs. Seward Simons, chair of the Legislative Council of the local district of the State Federation of Women’s Clubs, and her discussion of bills proposed at the current session of the California legislature. These included ones regarding required birth registration, child labor, compulsory education, and allowing women to serve as jurors.

The paper remarked that “perhaps it is because Sunday is ‘Mother’s Day’ and our hearts are all full of the dearest and sweetest personality we have ever known, that the subject of the Home Teachers bill,” this involving the placement of instructors in the homes of immigrants for instruction in hygiene, child care and other topics under the general guise of Americanization, “gripped us so tightly yesterday.” This was because,

The love of home and mother is the most beautiful emotion given to man or woman for the best possible uses, and we could not fail to be in sympathy with the bill that provides for the teaching and education of the alien mother within our gates. An alien family comes to our State, the children are in school and soon learning American ways and habits, the father gets work and he too gets his education by contact, but the mother, what of her? She stays at home perplexed and bewildered by the great difference from her native land, she has no chance to mingle and to grow.

The Vanguard editorial ended with the comment that, “the women question is the melting pot into whose huge crucible the differences and mistakes are to be cast, to come forth again in new shapes, bigger and better; with all the warped places made smooth, with all the rents and tears made whole, with the love for humanity stamped on every article.”

The collision between the exalted ideas of the holiday and womanhood generally came into conflict at Venice, though, as the Express of the 6th reported that the town’s Woman’s Club were upset that a “bathing suit parade” scheduled for Sunday was sullying the Mother’s Day observance. Although there was no format protest to date, President Mrs. W.H. Anderson “is urging members to exert as much influence as possible by remonstrance.” Despite the sentiment, the event continued among 60,000 beachgoers (many presumably not attending church services observing the holiday) and the bathing suits likely would have shocked the sensibilities of the Woman’s Club coterie.

Returning to Pomona, where its 1896 city directory referred to the burg as a “city of churches,” the activities for Mother’s Day at 14 houses of worship were explicated in the Progress Bulletin of the 8th. The prior day’s Redondo Reflex noted the program for the service at that beachside community’s Methodist Church including that “definitions of mother will be given; what some famous men said of their mothers,” as opposed to what any famous women, like, say, Jarvis, would have uttered, along with music and “an appropriate address” by Rev. John Headley on “A Mother’s Creed.”

The Pasadena Star cited a Philadelphia report that the holiday promoted by Jarvis, described as “exhibiting the inextinguishable fervor of a Jeanne d’Arc or a Florence Nightingale,” who was pictured along with her mother, was “winning wider recognition throughout [the] nation.” This included the concept of the white carnation, the trials Jarvis endured to get her idea widely accepted, the help rendered by Nebraska Senator Elmer Burkett in introducing a bill to make the holiday a national one, and more.

The paper also printed a syndicated column called Snapshots by Barbara Boyd, in which she linked Mother’s Day to the dire needs of Belgian children, as that country was ravaged by the invasion of imperial Germany during the early days of the First World War, and the efforts of some American women to adopt these young victims of senseless destruction. In so tying the virtues of the holiday to the humanitarian crisis in Europe, Boyd concluded that this was “so that Mother’s Day will tomorrow have a new significance for many women.”

The Vanguard, also of the 8th, commented that “many prodigals [that is, children] . . . are wending the footsteps toward the love that awaits them” while “gardens and hillsides are rifled of their choicest blossoms . . . the best china is brought from closets, and the best silver taken from its canton-flannel cases.” The short editorial concluded that “there is nothing too good to put before the wanderer; it is Mother’s Day, and she is going to celebrate it with her love.”

The Los Angeles Record of the same day proclaimed “All Hail, Queen Mother!” and observed that “she will be the sweetheart of the world,” while showing that same photo of Jarvis and reiterating that the holiday was largely the province of churches and clubs. In an editorial, the paper commented that,

Because of the watchfulness, the struggle, the constancy of that one woman—the woman who daily denied herself things that we might have our little pleasures and that we might go to school dressed cleanly and fully as well as the children of those who could better afford it—that is why disease or injury never overtook us.

Significantly, the editorial focused on “my boy” and the weary work of women to make sure that she was “giving us the chance to grow up into strong, intelligent men,” while the holiday was about the idea that “mother will have a delicious day of happy weeping and be proud of her boy.” As for girls, they presumably were just not a factor in this equation.

Out in the Quaker City of Whittier, however, women, including a Latina, were given some spotlight for the holiday, as the Whittier News, again of the 8th, reported that Friends’ Church associate pastor, Rev. Emma Coffin, was to read a “Mother’s Day” poem from Mrs. Manuel Corona. The verse was:

The perfume seems more fragrant

That comes from o’er the hill.

The lap-lap of the breakers

Seems sacred like and still.

The flowers, too, their heads bow low

Along each bordered way,

To express a silent tribute

To HER on mother’s day.

Oh Lord, in all Thy goodness

Hear, thou my simple prayer;

“Watch o’er and keep all mothers

From sorrow, sin and care.”

The fields are splashed with sunshine

For this is the month of May

And God has sent his blessing

To all on mothers’ day.

As noted at the outset here, commercialism was kept to a minimum. The Pasadena Star-News, for example, ran an ad from the Eldred Flower Shop, which offered “special basket arrangements and boxes of choice cut flowers, [and] suitable gifts for Mother.” The prominent Broadway department store advertised, such as in the Express of the 7th, that “the white carnation is the chosen flower for ‘Mother’s Day,” and Saturday we will distribute 5000 of these beautiful blooms from a booth in the Main Aisle” from 10 a.m. until all were gone, but the paper did not offer a promotion of holiday sales. The Hollywood Citizen, also of the 7th, made a suggestion to readers of gifts of booklets, cards and folders from its stationery department.

On the holiday, the Los Angeles Times kept its editorial to a modest minimum, merely memorializing mothers by mentioning that Mothers’ Day “is a beautiful custom” and “the white carnation is an appropriate flower for the occasion for its beauty and fragrance.” It concluded that “it is fitting that a special time should be set aside to the memory and appreciation of motherhood as the glory of life.”

More effusive is the statement by the San Pedro News Pilot of the 12th that “one of the picturesque observances of modern life has been the newly celebrated Mother’s day,” although it observed that “to many people who are strong on common sense it has seemed mushy sentimentalism.” The paper countered, though, that “the millions of people who wore white carnations” was “a suggestion that there is too little sentiment for the mothers rather than too much.”

The paper then observed that

Mother’s benefactions, like the blessings of the rain and the sun, largely pass unnoticed. The children regard it as something to which they have a right, and hence feel no particular gratitude for it.

It also made a distinction between classes, remarking that middle class mothers labored to the extent that “maternal activities are apt to be prolonged too far into elderly life” and wanted their children to enjoy “flirting and frolicking” while they worked and “neglect of this kind is always paid for by the regrets of after years.”

The Pomona Review countered the report of its Pasadena contemporary by averring, in its issue of the 13th, that “it is too bad that the [holi]day is becoming more unobserved as the years come and go.” Calling the holiday a “second memorial day,” with the intent of it becoming international, the paper recalled that, in 1909, when first observed, the amount of white carnations displayed was significant.

The paper continued that, because children rarely made public tributes to their mothers, this holiday showed the world that “we are a people who revere the best women who ever lived,” as if no other humans did so! It went so far as to claim that “the country that loves strongest is the country that is strongest,” though it quickly pivoted to suggest that “laying aside all that, Mother is entitled to one day of devotion.”

It then ended with a purple prose paean to American mothers (obviously distinct from all others globally, but also, presumably, only the elderly ones!), if somewhat dour:

Dear old mothers! The grass has grown green and the flowers have bloomed . . . Heads of brown have whitened, and eyes once bright are dimmed, erect forms have become bowed and the steady step of youth has become the imperfect tread of age . . . Scenes have changed and the old has been supplanted by the new. The brightness we once admired is covered with the moss of decay, but through all the variations of time, the recollections of the dear companion of infancy and youth is ever green. It is fitting we should wear for her the spotless blossom, for it is typical of the life she lived, of the hopes she entertained, of the death she died, of the heaven she inherited.

A more notable commentary from the Long Beach Press Telegram from the day following the holiday and referred to the terrible conflict raging across the Atlantic and which, despite Wilson’s assurances in his 1916 reelection campaign, included the United States helping to bring the decisive end when it joined the conflict in 1917, asserted,

Mothers’ day cannot be celebrated, ideally, until war shall have been driven back to hell, whence it emanated. It is the acme of cruelty to laud mothers in one breath and summon the sons of mothers to the colors, in warfare, in the next breath. The finest tribute and withal the most splendid service that can be given the mothers of this and other lands, is to abolish warfare for all time.

On this Mother’s Day, we at the Homestead offer our best wishes and hope that this look back 110 years to the commemoration of the holiday, then just several years old, has a certain amount of resonance for us today.