Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. It’s hard to imagine two days more different. One is flowers, brunch, and candy. The other parades, ball games, and BBQ.

I was surprised to learn that both holidays share more than the month of May — they both arose from the same motivation — a revulsion to the brutality of the American Civil War. Who knew? That’s why I thought it was a tale worth being reminded about.

Mother’s Day arose because of the efforts of several activist women.

One was Julia Ward Howe, the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Dismayed by the loss of life during the Civil War, she issued a proclamation for a Mother’s Day for Peace. The idea was to unite women to train their sons to not kill those of another mother. Unfortunately, this cause never completely caught on.

The woman who created the holiday as we know it was Anna Jarvis. Her mother established women's groups to promote health and friendship in western Virginia in the 1850s to help improve social conditions. This placed them at the crossroads between the North and the South during the Civil War. In spite of the war, club members pledged to continue their friendship despite the conflict and they chose to nurse soldiers on both sides. Later Mrs. Jarvis organized a Mother’s Friendship Day to help reunite families divided by war.

Following her mother’s death in 1905, Anna began a campaign to create a public holiday. Nine years later, the second Sunday in May was proclaimed a national holiday honoring mothers.

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The holiday we call Memorial Day began during the Civil War as well, with the practice of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers.

Communities in both the North and the South continued this tradition after the war. Union General John Logan called for May 30 to be designated Decoration Day for the purpose of “strewing flowers, decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” Unsurprisingly, depending on which side of the Mason Dixon you found yourself on you’d celebrate Decoration Day on a different date. It was only after World War I that the holiday was changed to honor those who had died in all wars, not just the Civil War. In 1968, Congress made Memorial Day the last Monday in May rather than the 30th, and the tradition was modernized.

I find it interesting that these two holidays arose at the same time from a shared tragedy.

I think Julia Ward Howe had the right idea… let us train our sons and daughters to not kill the son or daughter of another mother or father.