Mother s Day is the most celebrated non-religious holiday in the world. In America alone, over $67.1 million is spent on Mother s Day cards in celebration of mother each year. Each individual spent an average of $126.60 in 2013 for cards, flowers and taking mother out for her annual Mother s Day dinner. While Mother s Day was not proclaimed a national holiday until 1914, some form of a Mother s Days celebration has been held since biblical times. The battle to have a special day proclaimed at the national level and set aside for mothers was not an easy one. Anna Jarvis took up her mother s dream that . . . [I hope that] someone, sometime will found a memorial Mother s Day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. . ., proclaiming at her mother s funeral as her mother was being lowered into her grave saying, Mother, that prayer [that you] made in our little church in Grafton calling for someone, somewhere, sometime to found a memorial to Mother s Day? The time and the place is here and the someone is your daughter, and by the grace of God, you shall have that Mother s Day. From that moment to that of her death, Anna dedicated her entire treasure and physical and mental stamina to the accomplishment of her goal. Anna did not, nor could she at the time, foresee the obstacles that she would face in her effort to fulfill her mother s dream. Unimaginable obstacles including those of governmental resistance, populace apathy, lack of treasure and fraudulent claims by others plagued her at every opportunity. Only through dogged determination and tenacity was she able to overcome these obstacles and carry to fruition her promise to her dead mother. This is also the story of Anna s fight against the commercialization of Mother s Day, which she believed was to be a special day when the best mother in the world your mother was to be shown the affection and love of her children without ritual or ceremony. Anna believed that Mother s Day was to be celebrated without special fanfare the one special day of the year when all children were to go home to visit their mother, or if that wasn t possible, they were to send her a hand-written note expressing their love and affection for their mother not a fancy commercially printed card. It was not a day to be commercialized by confection and floral industries. She fought the commercialism of her special day until the day she died. This then, is the story of how one woman, keeping her promise to her dead mother, overcome unbelievable hardships to establish the world s most celebrated non-religious holiday.