Vol. 51, No.19
Serving the San Gabriel Valley Since 1966
May 08, 2013
Special Section
Local Events
Chalk Talk
Sports
Student's Corner
Temple City, San Gabriel, & ROSEMEAD PAGE 6
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The Mother’s Day Legacy: Celebrating Honor and Tradition
El Monte
by Jo Anne Disney
Mother’s Day is one of the most celebrated holidays of the year. Children and adults of all ages honor their mothers on this day. History tells us that in 1872 Julia Ward Howe, a poet and writer who lived in Boston, Massachusetts, made the first suggestion to celebrate Mother’s Day in the United States. She suggested that “people observe a Mother’s Day on June 2nd as a day dedicated to peace.” Then, a Kentucky schoolteacher named Mary Towles Sasseen started conducting Mother’s Day celebrations in 1887. Frank E. Hering of South Bend, Indiana started
a campaign for celebrating Mother’s Day in 1904. However, “the woman who started the Mother’s Day holiday we celebrate now was Anna M. Jarvis. She was born in a small town called Grafton, Virginia. Jarvis founded Mother’s Day in honor of her own mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, who died on the second Sunday in May, 1905.” She also started the tradition of wearing a carnation. Today, it is customary to wear a red flower if your mother is living and a white flower if she is deceased. After an extensive letter writing campaign, (Anna wrote over 10,000 letters according to W.W. Gore), and gaining the support of religious as well as newspaper and government leaders, President Woodrow Wilson announced that Congress had voted to make Mother’s Day a national
holiday. The date was May 8, 1914 and Wilson said, “Everyone everywhere should honor the mothers of our country.” Mother’s Day has been on the second Sunday in May ever since then. Moreover, in 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an ardent stamp collector, chose James Abbot McNeill Whistler’s famous painting known as “Whistler’s Mother” to be on a stamp that year. And, the words found on the stamp, “In Memory and Honor of the Mothers of America,” pays tribute to mothers everywhere. In our own neighborhood, we honor on this Mother’s Day Jeanne Courtice. She was born in New York and moved to California and attended UC Santa Barbara. She and her husband Stu have been married for 56 years. They have lived in
Temple City since 1961. They have two children Steve and Debbie and 4 grandchildren: Jennifer, Stephanie, Kevin and Lizzie. Jeanne worked for the Alhambra School District for 15 years. According to Jeanne, Mother’s Day is “an occasion to celebrate a most important job and getting together with family.” Jeanne is very proud of her children and her grandchildren and all of their accomplishments. Another local mom we honor on this Mother’s Day is Jan White. Jan was born at Garfield Hospital in Alhambra and has lived in El Monte since 1948. She remembers her first job was at the El Monte Hardware Store at the age of 13. Then a few years later she got a job at the JCP’s in El Monte at the Valley Mall. She graduated from Nativity School
continued to pg 7 Mother's Day Legacy
Jan White and Great Grandson Lavelle
Linda Miller Photo by Jo Anne Disney
L to R Stu Courtic, Grand Daughter Lissie Powell, Grand Daughter Stephanie Powell, Jeanne Courtice, Photo by Jo Anne Disney