The Ancestral Pen

  Dear Reader, When you see this newsletter, it will be Memorial Day. I hope you'll take a moment to stop and reflect on the men and women who have lost their lives in the service of our country — to protect the freedoms we all enjoy. As a Daughters of the American Revolution member, I feel very strongly about this. I'll be spending part of my day at the local VFW serving our military men and women. Then it's back home to the garden. My tomato, pepper, and okra plants are just exploding on the shelves right now. I know better than to put them in the ground up here until the first week of June, but I do need to prep the soil and get seeds in — corn, beans, squash, and melons. So much to do! Live Today Fading Light It is live today. If you like historical fiction, I sure hope you will enjoy this story of a family -- my ancestors -- who lived through the Revolution in North Carolina. Fading Light The weekly question to ponder: Does your family have a soldier who never came hom...

  Dear Reader, I’m writing this to you on Mother’s Day, though you’ll be reading it tomorrow. I hope yesterday was a good one — whether you were celebrating or being celebrated, or simply missing someone. The Woman Who Created Mother’s Day Here’s something almost nobody knows: the woman who created Mother’s Day died broke, blind, and alone in a sanitarium because she spent every dollar she had trying to cancel the very holiday she built. Her name was Anna Jarvis. When her beloved mother, Ann died in May 1905, Anna made a promise at the graveside that the world would remember women like her. She launched a relentless letter-writing campaign to politicians and church leaders across the country, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed Mother’s Day into law as a national holiday. Anna Jarvis had done it. And almost immediately, she was furious. Within years, florists were tripling the price of carnations every May. Greeting card companies were printing millions of sentimental vers...