I know that people haven't always observed Mother's Day, but so long as I can remember our families have been doing Mother's Day. I see lots of emphasis on finding the right gift for Mother these days, with ads varying from great places to take Mom to eat, to jewelry stores to buy her diamonds, to appliances bound to delight her heart as a homemaker, and so on. In my early memory, there wasn't much money in our family, so we didn't have much emphasis on gifts for Mom.
My Mom was very much into flowers, and the Mother's Days that I remember were very much about flowers. There weren't florist shops in Pea Ridge in those days, but we almost always had flowers in the garden and in flower beds around the lawn. Since the flower beds had to be protected from the scratching hens, our garden and lawn were fenced in those days. I especially remember irises which came back every year, and there where gladiolas, and zinnias and roses. For Mother's Day there would be several fresh flower bouquets around the house, on the dining table, almost anywhere there was a tabletop to set a vase. We had flowers.
The radio was always talking about moms whose husbands and children would do breakfast in bed for their mom. We might have thought about that, but our Mom was not one to stay late in bed, and I can't see her enjoying that kind of thing. She probably would have been wary of eating anything she didn't cook herself.
For us, Mother's Day was very much a church observance. One custom that I always thought was special was having everyone wear a lapel flower. Since we didn't have any florists nearby, the lapel flowers were not assembled corsages, such as we have readily available today, they were simply fresh flowers pinned to the lapel with a straight pin. Those whose mothers were still living always wore red flowers, usually a red rose, fresh from the garden or flower bed. Those whose mothers were deceased wore white lapel flowers, often carnations. There were no artificial flowers back then; everything involved live, fresh flowers, picked just for the occasion. All of us wore lapel flowers, not just the mothers, it was the dads and kids too, wearing lapel flowers in church.
Almost always, the preacher made quite a to do about recognizing the mothers present at church. There might be special bouquets or token gifts for the oldest mother present, the youngest mother present, the mother with the most children present, the mother with the youngest child present, the mother whose children had traveled farthest to be with her for the day.
I recall that a certain lady might almost always win the oldest mother recognition, so that came to seem kind of unfair. When I became a pastor myself, years later, we were kind of getting away from the competitive questions, like who is our oldest mother present, but we still enjoyed making a big to do about the mothers present, and sometimes would ask about who has the newest child and so on.
Almost always, the sermons we heard on Mothers Day in the early years would be celebrating motherhood, praising the virtues of good mothers, and celebrating the inestimable value of a mother's love and influence in shaping the character of her offspring. I would learn later that some mothers were intimidated by those idealistic sermons; for sometimes the bar of expectations was set so high very few could ever hope to attain to it's ideals as parents, and it could leave mothers feeling guilty about their shortcomings. Sometimes, even today, the ideal of the super mom is so powerfully celebrated and expected, mothers may be left with the feeling of being up against unattainable ideals. I tried to be a pastor who didn't seem to lay heavy burdens of expectation on parents, expecting all mothers to do everything listed in the 31st Psalm, and yet I continue to believe that ideals higher than what we have attained so far are wholesome and helpful in leading us to grow and mature as parents.
I think Penny Hall and her family originated the Pea Ridge Florist in the 1970s. Dean and Minta Messer also operated the shop for quite a number of years. I still like to do flowers for Mother's Day, and today's Pea Ridge Family Florist makes it a happy day. I appreciate them.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 05/14/2014