This Sunday we welcome Rev. Steve Edington to our church with his service titled Two Stories For Mothers’ Day.

There are two stories as to how we’ve come to have Mothers’ Day. Each one has its origins in the Civil War. They involve the lives of two women who lived at approximately the same time, but who could not have been any different with it comes to their social, cultural, and economic stations in life. They are Julia Ward Howe of Boston, Massachusetts and Anne Jarvis of rural West Virginia. Julia Ward Howe is in our UU family, and we UUs like to cite the origins of Mothers’ Day in her call for an International Mothers Day of Peace that was to be held every June. Anne Jarvis was the wife of a West Virginia Methodist preacher who devoted much of her life to humanitarian work in the little Appalachian towns where her husband had his ministries. It was Mrs. Jarvis’ daughter, also named Anne, who advocated for an annual Mothers’ Day observance in honor of her mother. It was daughter Anne’s efforts that got President Woodrow Wilson to proclaim what we now celebrate as Mothers’ Day.

These two stories have a lot to tell us about how we can best observe the second Sunday in June. I’ll share my thoughts on all this come Sunday.

We hope you will join us either in person or remotely. The link to join remotely is https://fb.me/e/2vEsmILH6