WEBSTER — In this tiny Taylor County community, on U.S. Route 250, stands an unassuming, two-story white country home that once served as a temporary headquarters for Gen. George B. McClellan during the Civil War.

But the story of the family that first lived here seals its place in history.

This is where Mother’s Day really began ... a testament to Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis, a woman who dreamed of a day to honor all mothers, from her daughter, Anna Jarvis, who fought to make that dream a reality.

Their story goes from Culpeper County, Virginia, to Philippi to Webster to Grafton to Philadelphia ... and then all over the world.

Anna’s parents — Ann Marie Reeves and Granville Jarvis — met in Philippi. Her father, a Methodist minister, was transferred west from Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1844. His father was a Baptist minister in the small town.

Ann Marie and Granville married in 1850 when she was 17. In 1854, they moved to Webster, then a growing little town located on the busy Wheeling-Staunton Pike, said Olive Dadisman, director of the Anna Jarvis Birthplace Museum.

He was a successful mercantile businessman, but life was still hard. The first two of their children to die — Alonzo and Annie E. — were buried in the dirt basement due to dire weather and health conditions. Only four of their 13 children — Josiah, Lillian, Claude and Anna — lived to adulthood.

In 1860, Mrs. Jarvis wrote her brother, Dr. James Reeves, “My children are dying like flies. As a mother and a woman, I should be able to do something to save them. Would you come and teach me?”

He did, and together they formed the Mothers Friendship Clubs, which taught the basics of sanitation and health.

During the Civil War, she nurtured soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. After 11 years in Webster, the family moved to Grafton.

The house went out of family hands and stood empty from 1958 until the mid-1990s, when Dadisman and her husband Tom moved to Webster and it was donated to their organization, Thunder on the Tygart.

“It took us two years to restore it,” she said.

Each room reflects a period of time in the Jarvis family. Ninety-five percent of the items in the house are original. Reproductions are as close to the original as possible.

“We’ve collected more than 5,000 items since we opened in 1996.”

Many had belonged to the Jarvis family. Others were donated in memory of mothers, she said.

“Mrs. Jarvis was wealthy enough that she could keep a real pineapple in her pie safe. This said (to company) they could afford to feed you. The family was very large and it took a little extra to feed an extra mouth.”

Although they were married for 52 years, Ann Marie remained a Methodist and Granville remained a Baptist.

“They never went to church at one time together. On Sundays, they’d bring the children into the parlor to sing and play the piano.”

That original Steinway piano still plays. On it sit the last photo taken of Ann Jarvis before her death in 1905, and the last known photo taken of Anna Jarvis, taken in 1932.

“Granville was a good businessman,” Dadisman said. “When he died in 1902, he left the family $400,000. He sent all four children to college.”

Anna attended Augusta Female Academy in Staunton, Va., where she met Woodrow Wilson.

“When he became president, she was able to get an audience with him and that’s when he signed Joint Resolution 263 making Mother’s Day a legal holiday on May 8, 1914,” Dadisman said.

“She returned to Grafton after college to teach but was more like her dad than her mother. She loved the world of business, so she went to Philadelphia in 1890 and started working at the Fidelity Insurance Company.”

From the shoes and purses, hats and dresses, letters and autograph books, and even the handkerchief quilt made by the late Goldie Miller, almost everything in what Dadisman calls “Anna’s College Room” was hers.

Many of the items were donated after a 1958 estate sale.

“Things went all over the United States, but a lot was kept in this area. People bring things to us. One man found a postcard for Mother’s Day. It was going to be thrown away when he saw her signature.”

Anna is buried in Philadelphia with her mother on one side of the tomb, her brother Claude on another and sister Lillian on the fourth. Her other brother, Dr. Josiah W.T. Jarvis, practiced in Fairview and is buried at the St. John’s Methodist Church, said Dadisman, who is working on a book on the Jarvis family.

“It will be more authentic than anything else written. So much trash has been written about this family.”

The company room is a display of where Ann Reeves Jarvis doctored soldiers from both sides during the Civil War.

Anna Jarvis and her niece Helen didn’t get along, Dadisman said. Sad for them but good for the museum, which received two boxes of Jarvis family memorabilia three years ago.

“We found birth certificatess, pictures, marriage license of Ann Marie and Granville ... boxes of wonderful stuff that answered so many questions I had,” Dadisman said.

“Mrs. Jarvis was a devout Christian who could convince anybody to do anything. She took 5,000 angry men after the war, talked to them, hugged and kissed them, and stayed friends for the rest of their lives.

“She had a power about her but she was a very soft-spoken, gentle woman who never raised her voice.”

After her mother’s death, Anna Jarvis remembered what she’d said over and over: “I wish we could set aside one day in the year for all mothers to rest.”

“It took from 1905 to 1914 until that dream was realized,” Dadisman said.

“But Anna didn’t stop there. She continued until Mother’s Day became the only international holiday. It’s celebrated in 52 countries today.”

In 1907, on the two-year anniversary of her mother’s death, she passed out 500 white carnations at her mother’s church, St. Andrew’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, — one for each mother in the congregation.

On May 10, 1908, that church responded to her request for a Sunday service honoring mothers.

In 1909 Mother’s Day services were held in 46 states plus Canada and Mexico.

In 1912, West Virginia became the first state to adopt an official Mother’s Day.

As keynote speaker, Anna dedicated the West Virginia Capitol building in 1932 “to mothers everywhere,” Dadisman said.

By the 1920s, her mother’s dream for a day to honor mothers had turned into a cash cow for candy and card makers, and florists.

Anna Jarvis filed a lawsuit to stop a 1923 Mother’s Day event and was even arrested for disturbing the peace at a mother’s convention where white carnations were being sold.

“By 1943 she’d become a total recluse and no longer allowed anyone to interview or photograph her, or even come into her home.”

After the death of her sister Lillian in 1944, her health began to decline and she was placed in the Marshall Square Sanitarium in West Chester, Pa., where she died on Nov. 24, 1948 ... “totally alone, heartbroken and broke,” Dadisman said.

“We are constantly getting new things. When people come here from last year, it’s all new stuff to see and hear,” she said.

“You never know when someone will find the next piece of history that will change the whole concept of what happened at that particular place. That’s why we never say no.

“A lot of people in other places did things to honor mothers. The big factor was that Anna Jarvis was the only one who went to Washington, D.C., and got that resolution passed and got it as a holiday.”

There are stories that the two Jarvis women didn’t get along, that Ann was mean to her mother.

“But I never heard or read anything about that,” Dadisman said. “And I have everything you can have on the mother.”

A highlight of the museum’s history was the visit by then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton last Mother’s Day.

After the “official” visit (in which all Confederate items had to be removed), she was given for “the real tour” of the whole house, Dadisman said.

“She was really super nice, down to earth. She really appredicate the tour.

“ She even thanked Chelsea “thanks for the best Mother’s Day present you’ve ever given me.”

For more information bout the Anna Jarvis Birthplace Museum, call 304-265-5549.

E-mail Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.