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MARY TOWLES SASSEEN
Promoter of Mother's Day
By Netta Mullin
Miss Mary Towles Sasseen was born on March 5, 1860
and was reared in Henderson, Kentucky. She was a teacher in our
own public schools, labored earnestly to have April 20th, her
mother’s natal day, observed in the schools in the manner in which
we now celebrate.
Mary also known as Mamie Sasseen was quite tall,
had auburn hair and one of the brightest faces, and the wittiest
tongue Julia Alves Clore had ever known. One of her chief charms
was her happy-go-lucky spirit. Always smiling where the occasion
demanded, but very firm and dignified. Quick at repartee, sharp of
wit, she was always able to hold her own with the most
intelligent. She was noted for that famous smile, and her advice
was, “Say what you’d like to say, just so you say it with a
smile.”
September 1885, Julia Alves Clore began teaching
at Center Street School, where Mary Towles Sassen was the
principal of the primary department. Even then she wrote stories
and poems for pupils to recite on April 20th, her mother’s
birthday, calling it “Mother’s Day Celebration”, inviting the
mothers of the pupils to be present at that very time. She was
constantly talking and working for this scheme, often expressing
the wish that she might live to see it a national observance.
In 1888, John C. Worsham, a practicing attorney
since 1905, attended the public schools in Henderson and during
said time he was a pupil of Miss Sasseen and he often heard Miss
Sasseen speak of the efforts she was making to obtain national
recognition of the mothers of this country by the setting aside of
a certain day to be observed and celebrated as Mother’s Day, and
that the day she was endeavoring to have selected as Mother’s Day
was the birthday of her mother, April 20th.
Being unable to find anything suitable, Sasseen
published her “Mother’s Day Celebration” pamphlet in 1893. Within
this book Sasseen defines Mother’s Day as follows:
Having by experience learned how much one can
teach a child regarding the lives and works of the poets, by our
system of Author’s Day, it suggested itself to me that by
celebrating Mother’s Day once a year, much of the veneration, love
and respect due to parents might, by song, verse and story, be
inculcated in the next generation.
By a Mother’s Day, I mean a day on which parents
shall be invited to the school and a programme presented, the
recitations being on the subject of mother, the songs referring to
home.
In this pamphlet, Sasseen refers to “Home as the
magic circle within which the weary spirit finds refuge; the
sacred asylum to which the care-worn heart retreats to find rest.
Home! That name touches every fiber of the soul. Nothing but death
can break its spell, and dearer than home is the mother who
presides over it.”
She further states that “We find that every man
and woman, whom the world has called great, whose words have been
treasured for their wisdom and goodness, all cherished their
memories of mother, of happy, innocent childhood and of home.”
Sasseen felt that her “pamphlet was sent forth in the hope of
awakening on the part of the child, a deeper appreciation of her,
who is the central figure of the home. That it may strengthen the
family bonds, making them more beautiful and tender, that it may
breathe a hope of that future, where language is music, thought is
light, and love is law.”
Sasseen traveled extensively and addressed various educational
meetings over the country in her effort to have Mother’s Day
observed in the schools. In 1894 or shortly thereafter, she
succeeded in having it celebrated of the Public Schools of
Springfield, Ohio.
C. E. Sugg had personal recollections of Miss Sasseen’s advocacy
of “Mother’s Day” as far back as 1897 because he was Miss
Sasseen’s opposing candidate for the office of County School
Superintendent.
May 6, 1899, the Saturday Morning Gleaner ran a campaign
advertisement for Mary Towles Sasseen’s candidacy for
Superintendent of Public Instruction. The ad ran as follows:
Miss Mary Towles Sasseen, of Henderson, Kentucky, who is a
candidate for the Democratic nomination for Superintendent of
Public Instruction, adds a new feature to State politics this
year. Miss Sasseen has made a practical study, in the school
systems of New York, Ohio, Indiana and Colorado, all leaders in
educational matters. She is the author and originator of Mother’s
Day. Within the past five years she has, unaided, secured the
adoption of the day in a large number of States, and cities like
Boston, Brooklyn and Little Rock have had from 10,000 to 14,000
pupils in line, singing songs of home and reciting poems in honor
of mother. The effect on character must be for good and does
credit both to the heart and head of the originator.
For many years Sasseen taught in the Center Street
School but was forced to give up teaching on the account of ill
health in the early 1900s. However, she did not give up her quest
for Mother’s Day as she continued to travel extensively and
addressed educational societies and other organizations in various
parts of the country in her effort to have the observance of
Mother’s Day nationally recognized and adopted.
On September 28, 1904 Mary Towles Sasseen married Judge William
Marshall Wilson from Pensacola, Florida. Being such a devoted
teacher and daughter, a cruel twist of fate occurred on April 18,
1906, when Sasseen died in childbirth.
A year later in 1907 was when Miss Anna Jarvis invited a friend to
spend the second Sunday in May with her to commemorate the
anniversary of her mother’s death. On that occasion Jarvis
announced her plan for the national observance of Mother’s Day.
I commend Jarvis for observing the day with fitting memorial
services in churches and homes in Philadelphia. For writing
thousands of letters to prominent ministers, teachers, business
and professional men about the plan. But the pioneer in this
national observance of motherhood was not Miss Jarvis, but a
Kentucky schoolteacher who laid the groundwork for the idea long
before Miss Jarvis did in 1907.
Please see our website at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~kyhende2/Sasseen.htm for further
documentation about Mary Towles Sasseen Wilson.
And as far as Julia Ward Howe, being considered as an advocate for
a national observation of Mother’s Day is clearly denied by her
own writing. In her “Reminiscences” Howe states that she was in
great opposition to Louis Napoleon from the period of the infamous
act of treachery and violence, which made him emperor. She
wondered, “Why do not mothers of mankind interfere in these
matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they
alone bear and know the cost?” She felt if she sent an appeal to
womanhood throughout the world that the waste of human life in war
could be prevented. Howe’s little document referred to as “Howe’s
Mother’s Day Proclamation” was not a proclamation about motherhood
or her own mother in the sense that Mother’s Day is expressed
today but rather it was an anti-war movement. I see this woman
dressed in black holding up a sign that reads, “Give peace a
chance” as we saw during the Vietnam War.
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