Happy Mother's Day 

It is little known that Mother's Day was originally conceived as a day of celebration of women's peace activism. Julia Ward Howe, a noted suffragist and author, distressed by the carnage of
the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, envisioned "a festival, a day which would be called Mother's Day, and would be devoted to the advocacy of peace
doctrines."

In her 1870 Mother's Day Proclamation, she wrote, "As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons
of war, let women now leave all that
may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel ... as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace."

The need for a day to advocate for peace and healing is no less today than it was in 1870. Our planet and all the people on it are in need of the nurturing, protection, self-sacrifice, common sense, wisdom, perseverance, tenderness, and reverence for life that we idealize in motherhood. Happy Mother's Day!

Nancy and Tom Norwood

Members,
Mothers for Peace

San Luis Obispo