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When school started in the fall, the last view of mom for many students was through tear-filled eyes. However, Mothers’ Weekend has brought mothers to the Ricks College and now BYU-Idaho campus and given them the opportunity to refresh maternal friendships with their children throughout its 87-year history.
The roots of Mothers’ Weekend run almost as deep as the university’s history and are tied to one of the oldest organizations on campus: the Associated Women Students of BYU-Idaho.
AWS origins
The AWS organization began 22 years after the founding of Ricks College, when the university formed an all-girl organization known as the Amagus Club.
The club name means “girl friends” in Latin. The etymology of the name also reveals the purpose of the organization, according to Rixida.
“Membership of this club is non-selective, being made up of all the girls registered in the college for the purpose of promoting friendliness among the girls,” according to Rixida 1935.
Girls’ Day
In 1916, the Amagus Club began a tradition of hosting an annual Girls’ Day in the spring, Inez Searle, former AWS adviser and compiler of the history of AWS, said. Girls’ Day would eventually transform into Women’s Week and then Mothers’ Weekend and become one of the oldest traditions of the university, Searle said.
Girls’ Day was a day for special dress and hosting mother while showing her around campus, Searle said. Girls wore colorful cotton dresses in checked, plaid and striped patterns as special attire for Girls’ Day. A Girls’ Day queen was crowned during a school-wide assembly. The crowning event for the day was a girls’ choice dance.
“The dance gave the girls a chance to shine and go with a guy they wanted to go with,” LaRae Clarke, Ricks College graduate and former AWS adviser, said.
Biddulph oversaw the major metamorphosis that transformed Girls’ Day into the present-day Women’s Week.
Women’s Day
In 1961, Girls’ Day changed its name to Women’s Day. The day remained marked as a special day but instead of crowning a Girls’ Day queen, a Woman of the Year was selected. A pool of eight students was chosen. The female student body then voted on the candidates to determine the winner. The three Woman of the Year finalists had their portraits painted by a member of the art department faculty.
A special assembly was held to disclose the winner. The portrait of the winning girl was placed on an easel at the front of the auditorium and covered with a velvet cloth, Clarke said. The winner was unveiled when the velvet cloth was removed uncovering the face of the student that won.
The tradition of painting a portrait of the Woman of the Year was continued until 1982. The portraits thereafter were captured by photo. Forty-one Woman of the Year Award recipients’ portraits from 1961 to the present are displayed on the third floor of the Hyrum Manwaring Student Center.
Women’s Week
Women’s Day was extended to Women’s Week in 1963, and mothers were invited to come join in the activities with their daughters, Searle said.
“We tried to cover the whole gamut of the home with the fair,” Clarke said. “If we wanted a class taught on basket weaving, we would find that person. We drew lecturers from the entire Snake River Valley.”
Women’s Week was held for an entire week throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. The culmination of Women’s Week during this period was Tuesday afternoon’s devotional speech. During this period, prominent women such as Marjorie Hinckley, Patricia Holland and Elaine Cannon attended and spoke.
Clarke remembers that mothers would come to stay with their daughters and the girls would give up their beds to their mothers.
“It was a nice kind of bonding between the girls and their mothers,” Clarke said.
The 1963 Women’s Week also featured the first honored distinguished achievement award, Searle said. The award was given to praise a woman within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for her integrity, responsibility, and service in the Church, Searle said.
Women’s Week was expanded once again in 1965 to include a fashion show and sunrise testimonial, Searle said. The show featured the original designs and productions from the students involved, Biddulph said.
“One particular year the girls made things for their mothers and then the mothers would model them,” Biddulph said.
The style show continued up until last year, but will not be held this year do to the disintegration of the fashion show’s club sponsor, Kris Fillmore, current AWS adviser, said.
With the expansion in student population, the number of mothers recently attending Mother’s Weekend increased over the previous year’s attendance. AWS estimated from a survey last year of all religious students that 3,500 mothers attended last year’s Mothers’ Weekend.
Mothers’ Weekend
In 1991, the AWS condensed Women’s Week activities into a four-day event beginning Thursday and ending Sunday evening.
The abbreviation in activities held on Thursdays prompted the AWS to change the name of Women’s Week to Mothers’ Weekend last year.
“The name is more descriptive of what we are trying to accomplish,” Fillmore said. “It is actually for the mothers. We have taken the emphasis off of the big speeches and put the focus on the meaningful time between mothers and students. This is more accurate of what we are doing,” Fillmore said.
Events will be sponsored and directed through the Activities program. Fillmore said that more students will be able to participate in the implementation of Mothers’ Weekend this year due to the participation of the Activities Program.
“We’ve built upon the past and added a few new things,” Fillmore said.
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