Mother's Day In Albion / Mother's Day
Marker Front:
On May 13, 1877, the second Sunday of the month, Juliet Calhoun Blakeley stepped into the pulpit of the Methodist-Episcopal Church and completed the sermon for the Reverend Myron Daugherty. According to local legend, Daugherty was distraught because an antitemperance group had forced his son to spend the night in a saloon. Proud of the mother's achievement, Charles and Moses Blakeley encouraged others to pay tribute to their mothers. In the 1880s the Albion Methodist church began celebrating Mother's Day in Blakeley's honor.
Marker Reverse:
The official observance of Mother's Day resulted from the efforts of Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia. In 1868 her mother had organized a Mother's Friendship Day in a West Virginia town to unite Confederate and Union families after the Civil War. Anna Reeves Jarvis died on the second Sunday in May 1905. In 1907 her daughter began promoting the second Sunday in May as a holiday to honor mothers. Following an act of Congress in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May Mother's Day.
Marker is at the intersection of East Erie Street and South Ionia Street, on the right when traveling east on East Erie Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
