“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give a person, he believed in me.” – Jim Valvano
Where does it begin? Let’s start with a brief history on Father’s Day. Outside religious traditions, in the United States Father’s Day wouldn’t come to be commonly celebrated or officially recognized until early in the 20th century. On July 5, 1908, accounts say Grace Golden Clayton, a resident of Fairmont, West Virginia and member of the church then known as the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, urged her pastor Robert Thomas Webb to hold a sermon in honor of fatherhood and in memory to the 361 men lost, 250 of which were fathers leaving behind thousands of children including Grace herself, during the Monongah Mining Disaster of December 1907. Because of local events taking place, the official observance of Independence Day, and Grace being a reserved and quiet person, the celebration never quite took off and was not replicated for some years.
On June 19 two years later, a celebration was held in Spokane, Washington by Sonora Smart Dodd. Sonora’s father, William Jackson Smart was a civil war veteran and single parent and after hearing a sermon on Jarvis’ Mother’s Day, she felt inspired. A member of the then Old Centenary Presbyterian Church, Sonora suggested to her pastor that fathers and fatherhood too should be similarly celebrated. After some deliberation, the concept was accepted by the church and on the aforementioned June 19, 1910 a sermon was held. The celebration would continue to fade in and out of obscurity with the times. Attempts were made to formally recognize Father’s Day as a national holiday but were ultimately defeated by congress. It wasn’t until finally in 1966 when then President, Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first official proclamation honoring fatherhood in the United States by designating the third Sunday of every June be recognized as Father’s Day. It was later made a permanent holiday and signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972.
“What Mother Days means to me is a day to celebrate another year with my Mother, a breast cancer survivor and to thank her for everything that she has done for me throughout the years.”
We all love our moms and that’s just saying the least. For many, Mother’s Day is a time to reflect and show appreciation and recognition to the women who have been our mentors, our caregivers, our first friend and our best friend; the person who molded and raised us to eventually become the person we are today. In honor of Mother’s Day, we here at Global Rose would love to hear from you! So please, comment below and let us know what Mother’s Day truly means to you!
“For when a child is born the mother also is born again.” – Gilbert Parker
Part I.
Today in this first installment on series of Mother’s Day related blogs , we take a look at the storied history of the annual holiday, Mother’s Day. In its present form, Mother’s Day is a holiday honoring motherhood and the maternal bond between a mother and child. Currently observed annually on the second Sunday of May, Mother’s Day was the brainchild of founder Anna Jarvis and was established three years after her mother’s, Ann Reeves Jarvis’s passing in the year 1908; though her earliest effort to establish Mother’s Day as a nationally recognized holiday date as far back as 1905. On May 10 of that year, a ceremony was held and orchestrated by Jarvis at the St. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church of Grafton, West Virginia, her mother’s place of work for over twenty years where she taught Sunday school.
Inspired by their close relationship and her mother’s efforts in the late 1800s to establish a “Mother’s Friendship Day”, the goal of which was to reunite families that had been divided during the American Civil War and eventually expand into an annual memorial for mothers, Jarvis championed her mother’s endeavor in her honor and had five hundred white carnations, her mother’s favorite flower, sent to St. Andrew’s and requested that each mother in the congregation receive one. The following year, having grown in popularity the holiday spread to New York where it was broadly celebrated.
In the following years Jarvis campaigned heavily to have Mother’s Day recognized as a national holiday. It wasn’t until 1910 when West Virginia, home to the International Mother’s Day Shrine (designated a National Historic Landmark in October of 1992) in Grafton, declared it an official holiday, soon followed by the rest of the States. Though officially recognized by the states, on May of 1913, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on all federal government officials to wear a white carnation in observance of Mother’s Day and on May of 1914, Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday of May as Mother’s Day. The following day, President Woodrow Wilson delivered the proclamation declaring the first National Mother’s Day… to be Continued!
Gentle and beautiful, flowers are the perfect statement in times of great significance. How graceful and elegant, as is the case when you see her. That trembling fear that embraces you and explodes with trickles of delight that roll down one’s countenance and temple of being. The corporal wonder that is only out shined by what magnificence consumes one’s soul. Had there only been words enough…but I love you…I love you does not satisfy all that dictates your existence, so splendorous around her, so enriched, so much power filling your whole universe.
A desire to disappear, that almost tragic impulse, to disappear so entirely into another until she is no longer an other at all. A hypnotic trance, a yoke that we willingly carry and love until it is part of us for an eternity. Until we are enveloped in blissful union – and yet…were you aware this can never be the case? That this flower has to be revived and tended to – that this satisfaction we seek is an eternal quest. A succulent journey that is a pleasure to go on, repeatedly, until exhaustion consumes one…then, then the whole process can repeat itself and once again the most divine of indulgences may commence.
This is the experience of her, this is what the story of the rose. Sweet, intricate, and delicate…it is the story of madness. The only madness that makes sense.
Wedding flower bouquets and how they can really make or break a wedding
Wedding flower bouquets are big business for many companies. Almost any wedding that has some kind of budget will include wedding flowers as one of the important things that needs to be present during the service. Normally flowers will be included on the bridesmaids dresses, the groom and groomsmen and the bride will also have her own bouquet to carry up the aisle. The wedding bouquet is a very high importance to the bride, as this has much significance during the service, especially for the throwing of the bouquet, as this is a very traditional part of most weddings. The point of the activity is that whoever catches the bouquet will be the next to get married, and there are often very many excited girls waiting as the bride throws it over her shoulder.
Gentle and beautiful, flowers are the 