Mrs. Blakely's brave move inspired her sons
Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis may be the best-known women associated with the founding of Mother's Day, but an Albion, Michigan woman is also credited with inspiring the holiday in 1877.
In that community, Juliet Calhoun Blakely is referred to as the "original Mother of Mother's Day." A historic marker notes her contribution to this special holiday, which Anna Jarvis of West Virginia worked to make a national holiday in 1914.
A disrupted church service and two devoted sons lie at the heart of Mrs. Blakely's story. On Sunday, May 11, 1877, she stepped up to the pulpit of her Methodist Episcopal Church after the pastor stepped away, apparently distraught over his son's drunken run through town the day before.
According to Albion history, Mrs. Blakely's son, Charles, reported the minister's son and two other boys, all member of prominent temperance families, were kidnapped by "saloonists" and forced to consume alcohol the previous Friday night. On Saturday, they were turned loose in the streets of Albion, to mingle with crowds of people - a move obviously designed to humiliate temperance families.
When Rev. Myron Daugherty stepped down, Mrs. Blakely stepped up not only to continue the service, but to speak out strongly against the evils of alcohol. That evening, several men from the anti-temperance movement tore up the sidewalk in front of her house.
From that day on, Mrs. Blakely's sons, Charles and Moses, urged everyone they met to honor their mother - and all mothers - on the second Sunday in May. Every year, they returned to their home church to do so.
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