Anna Jarvis's mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, organized women to help wounded soldiers during which war?

Ann Reeves Jarvis organized women to help wounded soldiers during the American Civil War.

In western Virginia, Jarvis’s Mothers’ Day Work Clubs changed their activities when war disrupted local communities. The clubs provided food, clothing, nursing, and other aid to soldiers from both the Union and Confederate sides. Jarvis urged the women to remain neutral and care for people regardless of their allegiance.

The clubs had originally focused on public health. Beginning in 1858, they worked to improve sanitation, reduce childhood disease, inspect milk, and support families affected by illness. Their wartime service grew out of that practical community-organizing tradition.

After the fighting ended, Jarvis continued using motherhood as a force for reconciliation. In 1868, she helped organize a “Mothers’ Friendship Day” in Pruntytown, West Virginia, bringing former Union and Confederate soldiers and their families together. This event was separate from the later national Mother’s Day founded by her daughter, Anna Jarvis, but it helped shape the family’s legacy of service and remembrance.