Bright Ideas

Last week I didn’t forget Mother’s Day, I just didn’t have anything new to say, until I looked up its history. A celebration of mothers was held by Greeks and Romans; they were honoring the mother goddesses, Rhea and Cybele. The first Christian festival was known as “Mothering Sunday.” That was the fourth Sunday in Lent, a time when the faithful were expected to return to their “mother church on Mothering Sunday.”

Ann Reeves Jarvis created an American holiday in the years before the Civil War. She organized “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to teach local women how to properly care for children. Was s...