Ann Jarvis Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis ( September 30 , 1832 , Culpeper , Virginia — May 9 , 1905 , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) was a social activist and organizer during and after the American Civil War . She and her daughter , Anna Marie Jarvis ( 1864 – 1948 ) , are recognized as the founders of the Mother ' s Day holiday in the United States . Biography . Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis was born in Culpeper , Virginia , on September 30 , 1832 , the daughter of Josiah Washington Reeves and his wife , Nancy Kemper Reeves . Her mother ’ s Kemper ancestor , Johannes Kemper , came to Virginia in 1714 as one of the original German colonists whom Virginia Lt . Governor Alexander Spotswood settled at Fort Germanna on the frontier . Johannes ( or John ) Kemper , the immigrant , married Alice Catherine ( Ailsey ) Otterbach , a fellow 1714 immigrant from the Siegerland , soon after their arrival in Virginia . Ann Marie Reeves ’ father , Josiah Reeves , was a Methodist minister who was transferred in 1843 from Culpeper to Philippi , Barbour County , now in West Virginia , when Ann Marie was eleven . In 1850 , Ann Marie Reeves married Granville Jarvis , son of a Baptist minister , who became a successful merchant in nearby Taylor County . Anne Marie Reeves Jarvis was mother to eleven children , but only four reached adulthood . Mrs . Jarvis was a dynamic woman who saw needs in her community and found ways to meet them . Starting in 1858 , she organized Mothers ' Day Work Clubs in the towns of Grafton , Pruntytown , Philippi , Fetterman , and Webster to improve health and sanitary conditions . These clubs raised money to buy medicine and to hire women to work in families where the mother suffered from tuberculosis . They developed programs to inspect milk , long before there were state requirements . Mrs . Jarvis called on her brother , Dr . James Edmund Reeves , who practiced medicine in Philippi and Fairmount , to provide advice and training for the women in her clubs . Jarvis ' activism had personal roots ; of the eleven children to whom she gave birth , just four survived to adulthood . The other seven are believed to have died from diseases such as measles , smallpox , diphtheria , whooping cough , or tuberculosis — diseases now largely prevented by childhood vaccination . During the American Civil War ( 1861 - 1865 ) sentiment in western Virginia was sharply divided and the western part of the state broke away from Virginia and formed the new state of West Virginia , loyal to the Union . Ann Marie Jarvis urged her Mothers ' Day Work Clubs to declare neutrality and to provide aid to both Confederate and Union soldiers . The clubs fed and clothed soldiers from both sides stationed in the area . When typhoid fever and measles broke out in the military camps , Mrs . Jarvis and her club members provided nursing help to the suffering soldiers , both Blue and Gray . At the end of the war , public officials , seeking ways to eliminate postwar strife , called on Mrs . Jarvis to help . She and her club members planned a " Mothers Friendship Day " for all soldiers from both sides and their families at the Taylor County Courthouse , with bands playing " " Dixie " " and the " " Star Spangled Banner " " and " " Auld Lang Syne " . " This effective and emotional event reduced many to tears , and to the understanding that old animosities were destructive and must end . The Mothers Friendship Day was an annual event for several years , until tensions had disappeared and it was no longer needed . Mrs . Jarvis taught Sunday School for a quarter century , and was often invited to lecture on subjects such as " Literature as a Source of Culture and Refinement , " " Great Mothers of the Bible , " and " The Importance of Supervised Recreational Centers for Boys and Girls , " a very progressive idea at the time . She often spoke of her dream to have a day in which Americans would honor mothers . After her husband Granville Jarvis died , she moved to Philadelphia to live with her son and two daughters . She died there in 1905 . On May 12 , 1907 , Jarvis ' daughter , Anna Marie Jarvis , passed out 500 white carnations at her mother ’ s church , St . Andrew ’ s Church in Grafton , West Virginia — one for each mother in the congregation . The following year , she held a memorial to her mother in Grafton , West Virginia on May 10 , 1908 , and then embarked upon a campaign to make Mother ' s Day a recognized holiday , a goal which was achieved when President Woodrow Wilson declared it so in 1914 . See also . Nine years after the first official United States Mother ' s Day , commercialization of the holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become and spent all her inheritance and the rest of her life fighting what she saw as an abuse of the celebration . Later commercialization and other exploitations of Mother ' s Day infuriated Jarvis and she made her criticisms explicitly known the rest of her life . She criticized the practice of purchasing greeting cards , which she saw as a sign of being too lazy to write a personal letter . She was arrested in 1948 for disturbing the peace while protesting against the commercialization of Mother ' s Day , and she finally said that she regretted having started it .