This column first appeared in May 2010.
Did you know that the “Mother’s Day” national holiday is connected to Indianapolis, Notre Dame football and Monument Circle? Although others may claim to have started Mother’s Day, it was Frank E. Hering, former Notre Dame Football coach, who created the holiday. While Frank Hering’s name has been dwarfed by the shadows of Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian and Holtz, it cannot be denied that he had a profound influence at Notre Dame — and around the country. Hering is considered to be the grandfather of Notre Dame football, the father of Mother’s Day and the guardian of the dispossessed.
Hering made the first known public plea for “a national day to honor our mothers” in 1904 at a ceremony in the old English Hotel on Monument Circle. The English Opera House was demolished to make room for the J. C. Penney Building which became home to Blue Cross-Blue Shield and is today headquarters for Wellpoint.
Hering, Notre Dame’s first full-time football coach and editor of the Fraternal Order of Eagles magazine, was a principal speaker at a convention of the F.O.E. gathering at the English Hotel and Opera House. The event was commemorated by the Eagles organization with a plaque that read: “On this site, Sunday February 7, 1904, the first known public plea for a nation-wide observance of Mothers’ Day was made by Frank E. Hering, teacher, orator, humanitarian, in commemoration of Mothers’ Day and in honor of its beloved founder the Fraternal Order of Eagles erects this tablet May 10, 1931.” Later Blue Cross-Blue Shield had the Fraternal Order of Eagles remove the monument, and it now rests in the clubhouse of Indianapolis Aerie #211 at 4220 East 10th St.
In 1925, the “Society of War Mothers” invited Hering to participate in a special Mother’s Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. There, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before a large audience that included many congressmen and senators, Hering was introduced as “the Father of Mother’s Day.” But that was over 21 years after Hering’s first public plea, and 11 years after President Woodrow Wilson officially made Mother’s Day the second Sunday in May.
The idea first occurred to Hering while he was still a faculty member of the University of Notre Dame, in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. Walking into a classroom of a fellow instructor, Hering watched as his colleague distributed penny postcards to his students. They addressed the cards and began to scribble messages on them. “What are they writing?” asked Hering of his fellow teacher. “Anything at all as long as it is to their mothers,” replied his colleague. A light bulb went on in Frank Hering’s head and the idea for a special day to provide formal recognition of mothers was born.
Hering became the F.O.E.’s “Grand Worthy President” in 1909 and began to travel across the country speaking to clubs, making his plea for a national Mother’s Day a standard feature of his appearances at Eagle functions and occasions. In 1912, he recommended that his beloved Eagles hold Mother’s Day exercises “on any Sunday during the year.” Approval was swift, and the F.O.E. was the first to begin a tradition of Mother’s Day. Legislation was introduced in the U.S. Congress by 1914, requesting a presidential proclamation making the second Sunday in May the official date for the holiday. President Woodrow Wilson went along with the idea, and May 10, 1914 became the first official Mother’s Day.
Hering’s dream of a national holiday honoring mothers won widespread acceptance all over the country and several of the groups which had been late in joining the Mother’s Day parade suddenly tried to take credit for the whole idea. The misinformation prompted the Society Of American War Mothers to conduct their own impartial investigation into the matter. After sifting through the divergent claims, the group’s findings were published in the February 1925 issue of its national magazine.
“We have been thoroughly convinced by documented evidence,” it said in the two page article, “that the inspiration for the present Mother’s Day came from a man – Frank E. Hering of South Bend, Indiana — and that the medium through which he carried his campaign over the number of years was the Fraternal Order of Eagles.” The article went on to trace the holiday’s origins to Hering’s first public talks on the subject in 1904 and 1905, and found that “Mr. Hering’s activities and addresses in favor of Mother’s Day antedated by three years, the first observance of Mother’s Day in the city of Philadelphia, which was in May 1908.” So ended the controversy.
Frank Earl Hering (April 30, 1874-July 11, 1943) was head football coach at Notre Dame from 1896-1898. Born in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, Hering began playing quarterback for Amos Alonzo Stagg’s University of Chicago Maroons in 1893-94. His first head coaching job was with the Bucknell Bisons in 1895. The next year he arrived at Notre Dame to play quarterback for the football team; but by 1898 he had taken on the additional responsibility of directing the entire athletic department, including coaching the football and baseball teams, and introducing basketball to the university. Hering deserves credit for a significant innovation, according to a 1913 Scholastic article: the field goal. In an 1897 game against Chicago, he became the first coach to employ a place kick from scrimmage. The team “negotiated a goal from placement from the 35-yard line, scoring five points. Following the introduction of the play by Notre Dame, it became a regular part of the aggressive play of the football teams of the country.” Not quite the forward pass, perhaps, but forward progress nonetheless.
Hering coached the first Notre Dame Basketball team (1897-98) along with track (1897-98) and baseball (1896-99), and served as athletic director (1898-1900). He earned the title of “Father of Notre Dame Football” for his success in expanding the football program from an intramural activity to a full-fledged intercollegiate sport. Hering’s service to Notre Dame continued long after his teaching and coaching days ended. He became a trustee, a valued counselor to administrators and a favorite advisor to Knute Rockne’s football program, even funding awards for the most improved players in spring practice.
Beginning in 1927, he chaired committees to finance and scout locations for a new football stadium. While helping to raise the “House That Rockne Built,” Hering also helped Rockne build a team. His football background made him a natural for the coach’s unofficial network of scouts. After two losses in the first four games of the 1928 season, Hering wrote to Rockne, “I am going to do what I can to aid you in getting more satisfactory material. No coach, no matter what his ability may be, can turn out a first-class team with second-class material.”
A week later, Rockne invited Hering to travel with the team to the Army game. “You might be just what we [need] to change our luck,” Rockne wrote. “I think the psychology is about right for us to beat those fellows.” It was during this 12-6 Notre Dame victory that Rockne made his “Win one for the Gipper” speech. When Notre Dame Stadium opened on October 4, 1930, Hering gave the dedication speech. While a member of the Notre Dame faculty in his later years, Hering was known for his outreach programs in South Bend, Indiana, including the establishment of “Hering House”- — a civic center for the African-American community.
When he died in 1943, the “Eagle” Magazine, which Hering founded and served for 35 years as managing editor, remarked: “Frank Hering’s humanity to man lay like a sunset haze over rugged mountains, softening their harsh realities.” Lester Loble, the Fraternal Order of Eagles’ Grand Worthy President, went into more detail. “He was the founder of the old age pension movement: tonight, more than two million old people are free from the haunting fear of poverty — because Frank E. Hering lived,” Loble wrote. “He was the dynamic leader for mothers’ pensions: tonight, countless children say their prayers at their mother’s knee — because Frank E. Hering lived.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt praised Hering’s support for the original Social Security legislation by saying in part, “his name will be held in grateful remembrance by all who love fair play and equal justice to all.” Eulogies from such luminaries as Notre Dame president Rev. Hugh O’Donnell and legendary college football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg credited his academic and athletic impact. Father O’Donnell praised his contributions to Notre Dame but valued his commitment to service above all. “Countless times he raised his eloquent voice to plead for the oppressed, of whatever color or creed,” O’Donnell said, “to help them attain the place in society which they deserve because of the sacredness and dignity of the human person.”
Worthy tributes to be sure, but perhaps the greatest expression of Hering’s life and legacy came from the poetry of Frank Earl Hering himself when he wrote: “So live that when you die, the poor, the sick, the outcast will mourn the passing of a friend.”
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
