Ann Reeves Jarvis
Mother's Day 2010:

Good morning. My name is Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis. I feel so honored today to be here with you’all to talk about my work in my beloved West Virginia. I’d like to start by telling you a little bit about my family history.

I was born in Culpepper County, Viriginia inSeptember of 1832. My daddy was the Rev. Josiah W. Reeves. He was a Methodist Episcopal minister. Daddy also worked as a tailor to provide a supplementary income for our family of seven children. In the spring of 1845, the Church assigned my daddy to a new settlement in Philippi over in Barbour County. My goodness that was a trip I’ll never forget. It was nearly 250-miles by overland stagecoach before we reached our new home.

Five years after we moved to Philippi I met and married the love of my life Mr Granville Jarvis, he was the oldest son of our town’s Baptist minister. Momma and Daddy were so kind to let us have our wed’n right in our home on June 18, 1850. We continued to live with my parents for a short time before we moved to Webster over in Taylor County. Once we settle in Webster, Granville built us a lovely two-story house.

We started a feed and farm supply store and God was providing well by us. I think “family” was our ultimate goal because from 1853 to 1868, I gave birth to 12 children. But God chose to allow only 4 of my children to live. I believe it was the challenge and tragedy of loosing my children that deeply deeply impacted and motivated me to pursue answers and solutions to saving other Mother’s from such misery and pain. I realized that these deaths were directly related to the uncivilized and unsanitary conditions we all lived with. Knowing that the Lord was asking me to rise up and take leadership, I began to organize the women of our community. I established the first Mother’s Day Work Club in Webster. With Granville’s support I also traveled to surrounding communities and, appealed to my fellow sisters to join me in establishing what we called “ Mother’s Day Work Clubs” in Grafton, Philippi, Fetterman, and Pruntytown. I called on my brother, Dr. James Edmund Reeves, and his colleague Dr. Amos Payne of Pruntytown to advise and guide us. We surveyed existing conditions and undertook assigned tasks to improve sanitation. We boiling drinking water, we learned how to inspect and pasteurize milk, we taught mothers how to sterilize their kitchen utensils, and we helped establish quarantine facilities for cases of contagious disease. I am most proud of my sisters for all the work they did especially to obtain and supply medicine for the poorest among us and to organize leagues of women to help families with tubercular mothers.

Then in 1861 we faced yet more challenges. The Civil War had begun. Perhaps it would be helpful if I explained a bit about our area for those of you a bit unfamiliar with the geography of Barbour County. Even before all that horrible fighting commenced, Civil War strategies in the Grafton area were aimed at gaining control of rail lines. Grafton was considered very important by both sides during the Civil War, primarily because of the presence of the area's railroad lines.

Control of transportation arteries in northwest Virginia, including the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike (now US 250) and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, was the main theme in 1861. Well, at daylight on a very rainy June 3, two columns of Union forces under the command of Col. Benjamin Franklin Kelley arrived from Grafton and attacked about 800 poorly-armed Confederate under the command of Col. George A. Poerterfield. Oh my goodness, after that, loyalties were declared, families were split, and tensions were high as battalions from both sides moved in and seized control of various public and private buildings. For a short time, Union Gen. George B. McClellan even used one of our downstairs rooms as headquarters.

This was a troubled time indeed. I just felt compelled to call an urgent meeting of all divisions of our Mother’s Day Work Clubs. I stressed the importance of the work we had done and appealed to my sisters to hold to their friendships and good will at all costs, not only among themselves but as a uniting force for their families and communities. I felt it was my role to provide an example of neutrality so when I attended the funeral of poor Thornbury Bailey Brown, (he was a Union soldier and the first casualty of the Civil War), I stepped forward to offer a prayer. I just trusted in God because I knew that expressing loyalty to either cause could prove deadly. I felt I had to to implore mercy for the soul of this young departed soldier. I was the only one to do so and I don’t mind sharing that it took all the courage I had that day. Well things only got worse on the war front. There were thousands of military personnel assembling in the area and before long, an epidemic of measles and typhoid fever broke out in the camps. To give you an example of the stress and intolerable conditions I will quote to you from one of the war bulletins. “Our soldiers are dying like rats. Can’t get coffins fast enough. Only two or three doctors, no nurses. Town guarded, can’t get in help.”

Union Gen. George Latham, an attorney from Grafton and dear friend of mine approached me for assistance in caring for sick soldiers and help in controlling the deadly outbreaks. I told George I had only one stipulation in organizing care: that she and the women of our Mother’s Day Work Clubs be allowed to provide aid to all sick men, regardless of their Union or Confederate sympathies. He agreed and again my sisters rose to the challenge before them.

In 1865, we decided to move to Grafton about 4 miles east. The Confederate surrender at Appomattox that year marked the close of the Civil War, but it did nothing to resolve all the personal conflicts. Hatred and bitterness came home with veterans returning from both sides of the war. Violence was a daily threat and tensions continued to escalate. Life seemed threatening and intolerable. Once again I felt compelled to call on my sisters and employ that we remain neutral so as to unify our communities. It was this activity that spurred my idea to organize a Mothers’ Friendship Day at the courthouse in Pruntytown, that was then the seat of Taylor County. I knew it was a potentially volatile meeting, but we succeeded in representing both the blue and the gray and drew both sides together with friendship and good will. While it did not obliterate bad feelings, Mothers’ Friendship Day went a long way toward alleviating the threat of violence. I have always believed that women could and should take an active role in all civic and political issues I guess in the end I just always held the conviction that the power of a mother’s love could provide a common meeting point for every division, even the most violent of disagreements.