The Daily Alaska empire., 1943-05-10

A urlUute JO lHOVilcio III BcHShpi and to Mrs. Thomas F. Sullivan, of Waterloo, Iowa, who lost five sons when they went down on the cruis- CT Juneau in the Battle of the Sol cmons last November, especially was impressively paid by It. Col. Roy w Riegle yesterday afternoon at the Elks Mothers Day observance in the Elks Lodge Room. There was large attendance of Elks and friends and the gathering was high lighted by the presence of the Girl Scouts of the Gastineau Channel area.
 During the program vocal solos were given by Mrs. John Headland, Lullaby" and Little Mother of Mine" and by Corp. Mel Smith who sang That Wonderful Mother Of Mine" and Mother Machree. , Both soloists were accompanied by Mrs. Lillian Uggen at the piano.
 White or red ribbons were dis DldyeQ Oil IllC SOot idpSio 1oi piAS Elks. in respect to mother who has passed on or who is still living.
 The Elks ritual was used during the ceremony, conducted by Exalted Ruler N. Floyd Fagerson, with re- sponses by A. B. Hayes, Leading Knight; J. L. Holmquist. Loyal Knight; E. c. Reynolds, Lecturing Knight: w. c. Overby, Esquire and Vic Powers, Chaplain. Ellis Rey- holds was chairman of the day, as- sisted by George Shaw, Outer Guard.
 It. Col. Riegle in his tribute to Mothers said: My Friends: It is a great plea- sure and honor to appear before you on this program and publicly pay tribute to the Mothers of Am erica. hT
 Although Mothers Day was ad- opted in this country by grateful Congress in 1914, we find that the idea. like so many of our customs, rests upon an ancient foundation. Mother love antedates the Christ ian religion, Mother-worship with it's own rites and ceremonies reach es back into pagan times. The harshness and general painfulness of life of old times was much re- Iia,,o<l l,,, oartoiy, cirp,1la and offec tionate customs which modern people have learned to dispense with Among these was practice of going to see parents, and espec- ially the female one, on the mid- Sunday of Lent, taking for them some little present, such as cake or a trinket. A youth engaged in this amiable act of duty was said to go -Mothering, and hence the day itself came to be called Moth ering Sunday
 .'It is a far cry from these quaint English observances of Mid-Lent to our new American festival. We can not claim for Mothers Day an un- broken line of descent from the old holiday when English appren- tices went -Mothering" The modern Mothers Day is perhaps the most concious and deliberate ieffort nation ever made publicly to honor motherhood and all that it implies There are only two sorts of people in the world-meng and women-and all relations between these two are cleansed and glori- fled by the idea of motherhood. The idea of motherhood covers and sanctifies all human relations. No language can express the power and beauty and heroism and majes- ty of mothers love.
 "A mothers love is indeed the golden link that binds youth to age: and that man is still but a child. however time may have fur rowed his cheek, or silvered his brow, who can yet recall, with soft ened heart, the fond devotion, or the gentle chidings, of the best friend that God has ever given us. The solicitude of a mothers love for her lad is one of the richest boons life can offer. The personal intercourse between Mother and son has a sacramental virtue in guarding and shaping boys course n life such as nothing else on earth can supply. Men are what their mothers make them. The mother in her office holds the key of the soul. and she it is who stamps the coin of character, and makes the being who would be a savage, but for gentle cares, a Christian man. A man who is known to all of us once said: Tt is more than 30 years since I lost my mother, but she still is to me an external conscience, pointing me in every emergency and distress of life to the right path, and urging me to take it."
 Many of us-most of us who quo o