Mother’s Day Was Always About Peace

Please consider honoring your own mother or mentor with a gift in her honor

Detroit WILPF leader Laura Dewey with her  mother Hope Dewey circa 1990. Hope was also an active WILPF member. 

Before her death Lucy Lewis’ mother encouraged her branch to gift memberships to their daughters and granddaughters.

For Mother’s Day this year, WILPF US is honoring ALL our mothers, and our mentors, who inspire us in our work and in our hearts. The History of Mother’s Day is entirely wrapped around the passion of women for peace. (see holiday’s history below). 

We’ll publish the names of the mothers you honor in an upcoming eNews. 

You can donate here and we’ll include your mother’s name (or a woman who walked with you in your journey) in an eNews story about how our mothers inspire our activism. Indicate on the form that this is a Tribute Gift, and enter your mother’s name in the form. 

Or choose to write a check to WILPF US and mail to: P.O. Box 13075, Des Moines IA, 52245. Enclose a note indicating this is for the Spring Appeal and including a note about honoring your mother (with her name) for Mother’s Day. 

If you’d like us to include a photo of your honoree in that eNews story, email that photo to us here, being sure to identify her name and yours. Feel free to include a few sentences about who your mom was In your family and in your community.  The deadline for being included is May 23^rd, so be sure to send your information, photos and donation by then, to give us time to write up that article. (photo quality may determine if we can use your photo)

As we celebrate the place of Mothers in our families and in our society this Sunday, let’s give thanks for all the women who’ve inspired us in on our path of peace work. 

Thanks for all you do, and for all the women who led us here. Happy Mother’s Day!

Don't forget. If you’d like us to include a photo of your honoree in that eNews story, email that photo to us here, being sure to identify her name and yours.

Yours sincerely,

Linda Low

Executive Director

Martha Collins

Co-president

Shilpa Pandey

Co-president

Mother’s Day’s Origins.

In the US, Mother’s Day began with Anna Jarvis who organized the first Mother’s Day service at Andrews Episcopal Church in Grafton West Virginia, which serves as the international Mother’s Day Shrine today. 

In 1905, that first celebration of Mother’s Day honored Anna Jarvis’ own mother who had just passed away. Ann Reeves Jarvis had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War and created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. She and another peace activist and suffragist, Julia Ward Howe, had been urging the creation of a “Mother’s Day For Peace” where mothers would ask that their husbands and sons were no longer killed in wars. Forty years before it became an official holiday Julia Ward Howe had made her Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870, which called upon mothers of all nationalities to band together to promote the “amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.” 

By 1911 all US states observed the holiday. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother’s Day, held on the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor all mothers. 

Read The Mother’s Day Proclamation here. 

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom/US Section

PO Box 13075 | Des Moines, IA 50310 | 617-266-0999

© 2025 Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, US Section

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Learn more about WILPF actions at our website: www.wilpfus.org