The Mother of All Father’s Days
Sonora Smart Dodd. Photo courtesy of Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau.
There’s a very good chance I wasn’t paying attention if one of my grade school teachers in Spokane, Washington, tried to tell us that the birthplace of Father’s Day was our town. Sadly, Spokane, seems to have a lot of other claims to fame and they’re often not nearly so feel-good.
But this legacy is great. A hundred years ago, this year, Spokane resident Sonora Louise Smart Dodd (great old name, huh?), decided to take a petition to a YMCA gathering of local ministers asking them to celebrate fathers with a June 5 (her own father’s birthday) sermon recognizing their contributions to families. Liking the idea, but feeling somewhat rushed, they agreed, but asked to delay their fathers-themed sermons until June 19.
So, on June 19, 1910, her pastor Rev. Conrad Bloom of the Old Centenary Presbyterian Church, as well as other ministers in the Spokane area, delivered the first Father’s Day sermons.
The ladies of the churches presented red roses to fathers and congregants were invited to wear roses to honor their own fathers—red roses for the living and white roses for fathers passed. Sonora spent the day, traveling by horse carriage with her infant son delivering Father’s Day gifts to local shut-ins.
And with Sonora’s arm twisting, Father’s Day proclamations were issued by Spokane’s mayor and the governor of the State of Washington. And thus began the spread of what is now an internationally-celebrated day of honor for all things paternal.
By 1916, President Woodrow Wilson officially commenced the start of Father’s Day sermons from Washington, D.C., and by 1924 President Calvin Coolidge went so far as to “suggest” that states celebrate the occasion. Then, in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the first official national proclamation designating the third Sunday in June be recognized as Father’s Day. However, it was not until six years later, in 1972, that President Richard Nixon signed the holiday into law.
Throughout this long journey, Sonora Smart Dodd campaigned diligently and was both supported by organizations such as the YMCAs and YWCAs, churches, and retailers who loved the idea, but also derided by others, like our local paper, The Spokesman Review, and those who thought the celebration was hokey. Mother’s Day, it seemed back in those early days, was easy to have a soft spot for… Fathers? Not so much. And back then, fathers were a bit more taciturn and unavailable than today’s renaissance dads, so perhaps it was hard for many to get that warm and fuzzy feeling.
What inspired Smart Dodd to work so tirelessly for her cause? Evidently, her relationship with her own father, a Union soldier during the last days of the Civil War. Born in Arkansas in the early 1880s Sonora then moving with her family to a farm about 60 miles east of Spokane. At the age of 16, her mother died, leaving Sonora and her father William Jackson Smart to care for Sonora’s five young brothers. It reminds me of my own maternal grandmother’s sad story of losing her mother to tuberculosis at a young age. This was a time when it was not unusual to lose a parent.
After her seeing her long crusade meet with such success, Sonora collected honors across the country and she and her husband had success in the insurance and funeral home businesses, including the Ball & Dodd funeral home, which still bears their name.
Spokane is very excited about this year’s centennial celebration as the birthplace of Father’s Day and its position as the birthplace of an international holiday. They even recruited Spokane native son and star of the sitcom Coach and NBC’s drama Parenthood, Craig T. Nelson, as the TV advertising pitchman to encourage you to bring your own dad to Spokane for Father’s Day. Father’s Day rafting, Father’s Day Ale or dad-dedicated Spokane Symphony concert, anyone? Eh, maybe not. But, anyway, it’s a sweet little claim to fame.
Happy Father’s Day, dads!
