On the recordMay 5, 2010
I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the gentleman from New York, not only for his support of this bill but also for his eloquent statement in support, not just of the coin but of mothers in general. I want to thank him for yielding time to me. Madam Speaker, as he said, this Sunday, families across the Nation will gather to honor their mothers and grandmothers. By the way, I am a new grandmother. I had to put that in. They will show their gratitude for the contributions these women have made not only to their immediate families but also to their communities at large. The tradition of honoring our mothers on the second Sunday in May goes back almost a century. It is a very interesting and quite simple history. The tradition of Mother's Day began in the mountains of Appalachia, when a woman named Anna Jarvis sought a more formal way to honor her mother. Her mother's name was Anna Reeves Jarvis, who had passed away in 1905. Ms. Jarvis, a native of Webster County in the wilds of West Virginia, began working with the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church of Grafton, West Virginia, to honor her mother and her mother's contributions to the community. In 1908, the church officially proclaimed the third anniversary of Anna Reeves Jarvis' passing to be Mother's Day, but Anna Jarvis was not to be deterred. She continued her efforts to honor mothers across the State of West Virginia.…





