Everybody has a mother and her day is coming

CANADA---The day to celebrate the most important person in most people's lives is just around the corner, and with Mother's Day arriving on May 12, the second largest gift giving day in Canada will soon be upon us.

While gifts are big for Mother's Day, flowers are even bigger.

"It is definitely our biggest day," said Island Florist owner Kathy Nunn, of Little Current. "For some florists it is Valentine's Day, but here on the Island, at our place at least, it is definitely Mother's Day. I guess we have more mothers than lovers," she laughed.

There seems to be less procrastination on Mother's Day than Valentine's Day, and florists have a few suspicions of why that might be.

"Mother's Day is not quite as bad as Valentine's Day where the madness is over two days," said Barb Culgin of Gore Bay's Sentimental Flowers. "We have a lot of women calling for flowers for their mothers, and they seem to know to call a little earlier, so it tends to be spread over four days," she laughed.

Carnations are a big hit for the Mother's Day crowd, but it is not a hard and fast rule by any means.

"The thing I notice most is that Mother's Day is the time when we get the most calls for fresh cut flowers in floral arrangements," said Ms. Culgin. "As opposed to Easter, where a nice plant or so will do."

Remembering moms who have passed on is also an important part of the day, and with the new approaches to cemetery maintenance, new products have come to the fore.

"We have been getting a lot of interest for monument saddles," noted Ms. Nunn. "They straddle the monument and keep the flowers up and safe, out of the way of the cutting blades of mowers and such."

Mother's Day has a long and varied history, it was celebrated in antiquity in ancient Greece as a special spring day set aside for Rhea, the mother of the gods.

As the spread of Christianity made its way across Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the day as one in which to celebrate 'Our Mother the Church,' and it was observed on the fourth Sunday of Lent. Lent was a time of reflection and abstinence leading up to the most important Christian holy day of Easter.

In England, in the 1600s a form of Mother's Day was called 'Mothering Sunday,' a day domestic servants and other working poor received off to be able to visit distant mothers. The day was usually accompanied with a special 'Mothering Cake,' which added a nice celebratory air.

A suffragette version of Mother's Day was instituted in 1872, by Julia Ward Howe, a Boston poet, pacifist and women's suffragist, (and also the authoress of the famous song 'Battle Hymn of the Republic') as a day dedicated to peace in the wake of the particularly brutal Franco-Prussian War.

"While the war was still in progress," wrote Ms. Howe, " I felt the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest." Believing the issues of the Franco-Prussian War to have been ones which could have easily been avoided without bloodshed, she asked, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life which they alone bear and know the cost?"

Ms. Howe's Mother's Day, as a day to celebrate world peace, fell into disfavor however, in the militant build-up to the First World War, a period which broke the hearts of millions of the world's mothers in just four short years.

Modern Mother's Day was born out of the diligence and hard lobbying of Ana Jarvis of Philadelphia, who, after convincing her own church to start observing the day on her own mother's birthday, soon had millions of women and others writing to pressure their governments into recognizing the day.

By 1911, most states and provinces recognized the day, and by 1914, the year which saw Europe plunged into the "War to End all Wars," the day was nationally recognized in the United States by President Woodrow Wilson, to be celebrated on the second Sunday in May.

 Manitoulin Trade Fair draws crowds from across the region and beyond

MANITOULIN---The bright sunshine was icing on the cake as throngs of people travelled to the Little Current Howland Recreation Centre last weekend, to take in the 7th bi-annual Manitoulin Trade Fair.

A record number of exhibitors drew an unprecedented number of people to the landmark mercantile showing, with 9,700 people estimated to be at the show.

"It's hard to tell exactly how many people we actually had at the show," said Trade Fair organizer Frank Reynolds. "We had our numbers counted at the door, but that doesn't include all of the vendors and the people working for them, and they count as customers too. We had a number of people slipping in uncounted through the back doors too... and how do you count that," he laughed. "Seriously though, the numbers were up significantly from the last show, we broke all the records."

The success of the Manitoulin Trade Fair was universally attributed to the hard work and dedication of Mr. Reynolds, and the wisdom of holding the event once every two years.

"Frank has been absolutely wonderful," said Marg Hague executive director of

LAMBAC (LaCloche Manitoulin Business Assistance Corporation), the organization which puts on the Manitoulin Trade Fair every two years. "He is an incredible bundle of energy, truly, a real gem," she said.

Mr. Reynolds himself deflected the praise however, pointing out the huge army of volunteers as well as the staff from various organizations who go the extra mile to make the event the success it is.

"People don't realize the number of people it takes to put things like this on," he said. "You have people like Gord Taylor, Duncan Pheasant and, of course, Greg Wright, from the NEMI town staff, they really went above and beyond the call of duty, we had 22 volunteers from the NEMI Fire Department. I hired 15 people to work in the show, and there were three people I brought in for the draperies alone."

Members of the Sheguiandah Lions Club were out, helping to man some of the events, including the popular bounce ride set up outside the centre.

"There were over 780 kids who went through that ride," he said. "There was one little kid who came up with a five dollar bill and said I want to go for an hour."

The family nature of the event was clearly evident in the number of diversions for the little folks.

The Manitoulin Toy Library room was a major hit, entertaining the smallest of fry, and Shultzy the Clown was on hand to keep the older children occupied, while their parents were checking out the really big toys on display. In addition to the bouncing rides, bouncing a different sort was served up by Kyla Jansen and the Honora Riding Stables, with ponies and horses doing the circuit almost non-stop.

There was truly something for everyone at the show, from housewares and food, to siding and heat pumps, from canoes and cars to art and crafts. In addition to vendors plying their wares, government and quasi-governmental agencies were on hand, including FedNor, the Canadian Coast Guard, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, who were on hand to plug their new Sudbury office.

Area service clubs were out in force, with the Freemasons and Lions Clubs, among others, speaking to people about their organizations. The day was particularly successful for the Little Current Lions, who nearly sold out their latest edition of their 20 dollar trade coin. Small wonder the coins were so popular, the 2000 version has recently surpassed the $200 value mark in trading circles.

The fame of the show, which is limited to businesses which operate in the Manitoulin-LaCloche area, has spread far beyond the LAMBAC borders.

"This is unquestionably the best show in the province, bar none," said John Ortt of International Heat Pump out of Fergus, Ontario, and he should know, he attends trade fairs and shows across the province, backing up local vendors. "Do you know why?" he asked, "because it is only held every two years, that's smart marketing. You get an excitement building that you just don't see at other shows, people really look forward to it."

"It truly is great," said a beaming NEMI Mayor, Ken Ferguson. "The number of people coming into the community is a great economic boost in its own right, and then there is the opportunity for people to learn about the goods and services available on the Island. The number of people walking through the building from Sudbury is just incredible."