There is a word we use every day in real estate — a word that separates what we do from simply buying and selling property.
That word is home.
Not house. Not unit. Not listing. Home. And if you stop for a moment and think about who taught you what that word really means — who first made it feel like something more than four walls and a roof — chances are, a mother comes to mind.
This Mother's Day, we want to do something a little different. We want to slow down, step away from listings and market reports for a moment, and honor the women who are, and have always been, the true architects of home. Not just the physical spaces we live in — but the warmth, the safety, the belonging that makes a house worth having in the first place.
We also want to tell you a story. Because Mother's Day itself has a remarkable origin — one that began not with flowers or brunch reservations, but with a daughter's love for her mother, a prayer spoken in a Sunday school classroom, and one woman's lifelong mission to make sure the world never forgot what mothers give us.
Where It All Began: The Story of Anna Jarvis
The holiday we celebrate today traces its roots to a small town in West Virginia and a woman named Ann Reeves Jarvis — a mother, a community organizer, and, by any measure, an extraordinary human being.
Ann Reeves Jarvis was a young Appalachian homemaker who taught Sunday school lessons and was also a lifelong activist who, in the mid-1800s, organized "Mothers' Day Work Clubs" in West Virginia to combat unsanitary living conditions. She was deeply concerned about child mortality in her community — and took it upon herself to educate and support the mothers around her who needed it most.
Then the Civil War came. And Ann Jarvis did something remarkable. Ann's Mothers' Day Work Clubs cared for sick and injured soldiers from both sides of the war. Ann also coordinated a "Mother's Friendship Day" after the war ended, encouraging friendliness between the mothers of former Union and Confederate soldiers. In a country torn apart by conflict, a mother organized peace.
Ann Jarvis never got to see a national holiday in her honor. She died in 1905. But she left behind a daughter who would never forget her.
In 1876, when she was 12 years old, Anna Jarvis witnessed her mother offer a prayer at the close of a Sunday school class: "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life," her mother said. "She is entitled to it." Anna Jarvis never forgot her mother's prayer.
She spent the next several years making that prayer come true.
After gaining financial backing from a Philadelphia department store owner named John Wanamaker, in May 1908, she organized the first official Mother's Day celebration at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia. Following the success of her first Mother's Day, Jarvis resolved to see her holiday added to the national calendar, arguing that American holidays were biased toward male achievements, and started a massive letter writing campaign to newspapers and prominent politicians urging the adoption of a special day honoring motherhood.
Her persistence paid off: President Woodrow Wilson designated Mother's Day as a national holiday in 1914, declaring it a "public expression of love and reverence for the mothers of our country."
Anna Jarvis had done it. She had given her mother — and every mother — their day.
There is a bittersweet coda to Anna's story worth knowing. Anna Jarvis conceived of Mother's Day as an intimate occasion — a son or daughter honoring the mother they knew and loved — and not a celebration of all mothers. She grew increasingly dismayed as the holiday became commercialized, eventually spending much of her fortune fighting to preserve its original meaning. She died alone and penniless from the various legal battles she waged over the holiday she started. She never made any profit from Mother's Day, and she never had any children.
And yet — she gave the world something that has endured for more than a century. She gave us a day to stop, look at the mothers in our lives, and say: you are seen, and you are everything.
What Mothers Actually Do
We talk a lot in real estate about what makes a home. Good bones. Natural light. An open floor plan. A neighborhood with character.
But anyone who has ever felt truly at home somewhere knows that none of those things are what actually make it. What makes a home is something you can't list in an MLS entry. It's the smell of something cooking on a Sunday morning. The way someone always knew when you needed to talk and when you needed to be left alone. The rituals so small and so constant you only notice them when they're gone.
Mothers build all of that. Quietly, consistently, without being asked.
They are the first people who teach us that a space can be safe. That there are places in the world where we are unconditionally welcome. That home is not something you find — it's something someone makes for you, out of love and patience and ten thousand small daily acts of care.
This is true of mothers in the traditional sense. And it is equally true of grandmothers, who somehow love us with a kind of spacious, unhurried warmth that feels different from everything else. Of stepmothers who stepped into hard situations and showed up anyway. Of aunts who became the person you called when you couldn't call anyone else. Of chosen mothers — the women who weren't born into the role but grew into it, for someone who needed them.
Mother's Day belongs to all of them.
The Women Who Shape Chicago's Homes
Here in Chicago, we have spent years helping families find homes. And in that work, we have watched mothers — in every sense of the word — do what they do best.
We have watched mothers tour fifty apartments before finding the one that felt right for their family. We have watched grandmothers sit quietly in a sunlit living room and say, without saying anything at all, this is the one. We have watched single mothers close on their first home and tear up at the closing table — not because of the paperwork, but because of what it meant. A foundation. A place of their own. Somewhere safe to build a life.
We have watched women who are moving their aging mothers closer to them, so that the woman who made them feel safe can now feel safe herself. And we have watched women who are upsizing for the first time — because there's a new baby coming, and they want what their own mother gave them: a home with room to grow.
Every one of those stories is a version of the same thing Anna Jarvis saw in her mother all those years ago: the matchless service mothers render, in every field of life.
At Choose City Living, we are privileged to be part of those stories. We take that privilege seriously.
A Note to Every Mother Reading This
If you are a mom — of any kind, in any capacity — we want you to know something.
The work you do matters more than you probably know. The home you make — whether in a Gold Coast high-rise or a Lincoln Park brownstone or a first apartment in Wicker Park — is more than real estate. It is the foundation of someone's entire sense of what the world can feel like. Of what safety means. Of what love looks like in practice.
Anna Jarvis wanted a holiday that was personal. A day when families would stop and truly honor the one mother they knew most intimately. Not as a category. Not as a symbol. As a person.
So today — however you're spending it — we hope you feel seen. We hope someone tells you what you mean to them. We hope you get a moment of quiet, or a moment of joyful chaos, or whatever it is that feels most like rest to you.
And we hope that wherever you are, it feels like home.
Happy Mother's Day from all of us at Choose City Living. 🌸
Thinking About Home This Mother's Day?
Whether you're looking to find a new home for your family, get closer to the people who matter most, or simply find out what your current home is worth — we're here whenever you're ready.
Every client, at every stage of life, gets the same thing from our team: honest guidance, genuine care, and someone who shows up for you the way a good mother would.
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Choose City Living is a Chicago real estate team serving buyers and sellers at every level — from first-time buyers to luxury clients. Call us at (312) 485-3330 or email [email protected].
