Anna’s mother spent much of her life championing women’s causes through work clubs that helped improve health and sanitary conditions in West Virginia, including providing assistance to mothers with tuberculosis. After the Civil War, Reeves Jarvis also created a Mothers’ Friendship Day to ease tensions and promote peace among the war-torn republic. She died in 1905, but not before burying eight or nine of her own children (genealogies vary).

According to Anna Jarvis’ brother Claude, “My sister Lillian and myself were standing beside the open grave on the side. As the bishop said, ‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,’ Anna broke out in a heartbreaking cry and said, ‘Mother, that prayer made in our little church in Grafton calling for someone, somewhere, sometime to found a memorial to mother’s day — the time and place is here, and the someone is your daughter. And by the grace of God, you shall have your Mother’s Day.’”

Anna Jarvis claimed she went straight from the gravesite to her home in Philadelphia, where she had moved in the 1890s, to start planning for Mother’s Day. Her campaign didn’t begin in earnest until 1907, but over the next few years, Jarvis wrote thousands of letters to any prominent figure who could wield influence: President Teddy Roosevelt, of course, and 1908 presidential hopeful William Jennings Bryan, but also Mark Twain and former Postmaster General John Wanamaker. The campaign quickly gained steam, even though some — particularly women — ridiculed her idea, and the Senate initially rejected the Mother’s Day resolution in 1908. Wanamaker was one of the first to jump on board in support of her. “It seems possible if we give our hearts to this loving service, it will become one of the most beautiful days of our lives,” he wrote. Twain’s commendation was printed in newspapers in Philadelphia and New York, and Bryan said he was “heartily in sympathy with the movement.”

On May 10, 1908, the first official Mother’s Day services were held in Grafton at Andrews Church and in Philadelphia, where Jarvis spoke for 70 minutes at the Wanamaker Store Auditorium. The venue seated 5,000, but 15,000 tried to gain admission. Wolfe wrote that Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University, heaped praise on Jarvis after her address. “You are a convincing orator, a brilliant thinker,” he said. “You will be able to obtain what you want. Your Mother’s Day idea will honor you through ages to come.”

Most states held Mother’s Day celebrations over the next few years, and Jarvis, who proved an adept publicist, annually requested official Mother’s Day proclamations from state governors, who implored their citizens to observe the day and wear a white carnation. “Next to the name of God,” Kansas Gov. Walter Stubbs proclaimed, “the sweetest word in the English tongue is ‘mother.’” With virtually the entire United States celebrating Mother’s Day state by state, Woodrow Wilson signed legislation designating the second Sunday in May a national holiday in 1914.

Jarvis declared the white carnation the official flower of Mother’s Day, and she urged sons and daughters to visit their mothers or, at the very least, to write home on Mother’s Day. “Live this day as your mother would have you live it,” Jarvis instructed in her letters. Her vision for the day was domestic — focusing on a mother’s role within the home — and highly sentimental. It was to be celebrated “in honor of the best mother who ever lived — your own.”