On this day in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation making the Mother’s Day holiday official, to be celebrated on the second Sunday of May. Many U.S. states celebrated Mother’s Day as early as 1911, and the idea for a day of peace in honor of mothers is credited to both Julia Ward Howe (1872) and Anna Jarvis (1907).

Viola Haeline Dollar Lake of Macon, Georgia made this Mother’s Choice quilt in the 1940’s. Lake was a homemaker and mother of eight children who learned to quilt as a teenager for necessity. Her great granddaughter inherited the quilt and documented it during the Florida Quilt Project in 2007.

View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about it’s history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view.

Sources:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/woodrow-wilson-proclaims-the-first-mothers-day-holiday  

Posted by Amy E. Milne
Executive Director, Quilt Alliance
amy.milne@quiltalliance.org