Mom
There’s no official holiday to celebrate the youngest child. This is a travesty beyond comprehension.
Being the youngest is a distinction worthy of praise. No matter the characteristics or qualities of any specific youngest person, celebrating the finality of family reproduction activities needs to be highlighted, if only for one day a year.
Who’s with me on this?
There can be no youngest without older siblings, and there can’t be siblings without Mothers. This is Mother’s Day week. A time during the year if you haven’t spoken to your mother in a while, you really need to do it on Sunday.
Mother’s Day has deep American roots, beginning with the Civil War. West Virginian Ann Jarvis led the Mother's Day Workers Club during the war to assist Union and Confederate soldiers. After the war ended, Mother’s Friendship Day was established to commemorate the sacrifices mothers made for the country for mothers who lost their sons.
Influenced by Jarvis’s work, efforts to formalize Mother’s Day increased in the following decades until 1908, when her daughter, Anna, held a service in a West Virginia church where her mother, Ann, used to teach Sunday School. Yes, Ann named her daughter Anna.
Anna continued to push for a formal Mother’s Day holiday. In 1913, the House of Representatives passed a resolution asking everyone in the federal government to wear a flower in May to show support for mothers. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation passed by Congress that made the second Sunday in May Mother’s Day.
And the rest is history.
Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here's what I got:
USSR-led boycott of the US Summer Olympics began on May 8, 1984. Four years after the United States passed on participating in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Soviet Union returned the favor and said nyet, like a mother to the youngest child who wanted to go outside and play with kids she felt were bad influences.
Nancy Mace became the first female graduate of the Citadel on May 8, 1999. White South Carolinians created the military college to protect themselves from potential slave uprisings. It only allowed men to dress up and play army, but in the mid-1990s, admitted Mace, thinking that was some sort of improvement. The only child and mother of two has been a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina’s first district.
J. Edgar Hoover became the Director of the FBI on May 10, 1924. President Coolidge appointed Hoover to the Bureau of Investigation, the predecessor to the FBI. Hoover was born just up the street from where I live in Washington, DC, and is the youngest child who is said to be the closest to his mother.
Be sure to call your mother and tell her how much you love her. If you also happen to write a blog that she receives through email, you could begin the week by telling her that you love her. I love you, Mom!
Moms are the best. If you are a mother yourself, you are also the best. If you are the youngest and a mother, you are the best of the best. Like my Mom is.
And with that, I wish you all a great week. I’ll see you on Friday. Thanks for supporting Okay History.
You’re the best.
Okay,
Chris
