Mother’s Day has been celebrated for almost 100 years. In the United States, it became a recognized holiday in 1914 because of Anna Jarvis. Born in 1864 in Webster, W.Va., Anna Jarvis, inspired by her mother, started a campaign in 1907 to make Mother’s Day an official holiday two years after her own mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, passed away.
In 1910, the governor of West Virginia officially proclaimed Mother’s Day an official holiday in the state. “Our days of youth may be over, and the closer ties that bound us to our mother may have been loosened, but not a link in the chain of affection that bound her heart to ours has been broken, and we are thinking of Mother today as we always did, the noblest, sweetest and best of all God’s creatures.” In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a Congressional resolution proclaiming the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
Although Ms. Jarvis achieved her goal of making Mother’s Day an official U.S. holiday, she grew disappointed by its commercialization.
“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother — and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment,” Ms.Jarvis said in disillusionment.
In 1948, Anna Jarvis died in West Chester, Pa., but Mother’s Day survived. And Pittsburgh newspapers have been honoring mothers from the community for many decades. Every year, there is a mention of Mother’s Day in Post-Gazette, and until 1992, The Pittsburgh Press covered it, too. Some mothers’ stories are quite remarkable. The story of Helen Manz is one of them.
In 1944, Ms. Manz, a North Side woman, received “a mother of the year award” from the armed services. The award was given in recognition of her own sacrifice and her family’s war effort. Seven of her 10 sons were in the service during World War II. “She was so proud of the seven stars on her window, each star representing a son in the service.”
In an interview with The Pittsburgh Press, her son Charles said, “My mother had more sons in the war than any other mother in Pennsylvania. My brothers Adam, Raymond, Richard, James and Joseph were all in the Army. Vincent and John were in the Navy and Frank, Bill and I were in defense work.” As part of Ms. Manz’s mother of year award, she travelled in 1944 to Atlantic City, N.J., to reunite with her son, Richard, who was wounded at the Battle of Anzio in Italy. All of her sons returned safely, but John was killed in an auto accident years later.
In 1980, The Pittsburgh Press ran a special for the 90th birthday of Helen Manz. At that point, she had a family of 31 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
Born on the North Side to German immigrant parents, Ms. Manz said that her family was widely known in the soap industry. In those days Staab soap was a household name among many German families in that area. Helen married a German immigrant who was a well-known meat cutter on the North Side. The couple had 10 boys and two girls. The Manz children were raised during the Depression and they remembered their mother scrubbing floors and doing all her baking and canning to keep the family going.
Ms. Manz taught her children to work hard, live right, speak softy, but carry a big stick. “I was tough with my children. I never let my boys get the upper hand. When I thought they needed it, they got a good tanning,” she said in the interview with The Pittsburgh Press.
Keep it real, dear mothers! And have a wonderful Mother’s Day!
