The city in West Virginia where the first Mother’s Day service was held was Grafton.
The service took place at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church on May 10, 1908. Anna Jarvis organized the observance to honor her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, who had died in 1905. Jarvis sent 500 white carnations to the church, establishing the flower as an early symbol of the holiday.
Grafton is in Taylor County, north-central West Virginia. The church is now the International Mother’s Day Shrine, a National Historic Landmark. Philadelphia also hosted a major 1908 observance organized by Anna Jarvis, so the two cities are sometimes confused. Grafton, however, is the location associated with the first public service.
The modern holiday developed from Anna Jarvis’s campaign to create a day honoring mothers’ personal sacrifices, rather than from a long-established national festival. President Woodrow Wilson officially recognized the observance in 1914, when the second Sunday in May became the customary date in the United States.