Happy Mother's Day - With the Jolly Green Giant

This morning I woke to the sudden realization that I'd failed in my Mother's Day responsibilities, I'd failed to put a web greeting together. So, between coffee and getting ready to visit my own mother, I did a brief search of the web for mom-appropriate material. I came across a lot of Victorian greeting cards and images that would have worked well, but the item that stayed with me was this little Mother's Day mention in a Green Giant ad.

The ad ran in the November 15, 1937 issue of Life Magazine, so the mention of the May holiday really is just a passing mention. The form, including the pronunciation guide, is an imitation of the McGuffey Reader a creation of William Holmes McGuffey. McGuffey's readers were one of the nation's first true textbooks for teaching reading and grammar to young students.

It's interesting that the bad mother is a saucy fan dancer. Then again, maybe I'm making an assumption. The prim woman in the leg-of-mutton sleeves could be the bad one. She does look like the wicked step-mother sort now that I think about it. I can imagine her saying "I know you'd like to go to the ball, but the basement floors need scrubbing and someone has to kill the bats infesting the belfry...". In the end, though, neither one of them look anything like a real mother - especially not of the era when the ad ran.

Back to my point and reason for writing this morning, happy Mother's Day to all you mom's out there. I sincerely hope your children don't gift you with cans of Green Giant peas (or any other vegetation short of flowers).