HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to all you fathers who have given so much to your children! Thought I’d share a bit of Father’s Day history...
In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a law declaring that Father’s Day be celebrated annually on the third Sunday in June. Presidents Wilson, Coolidge and others recognized the day...but did not make it official.
The first known Father’s Day service occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908, after a devastating mining explosion that had occurred locally the past December. Grace Golden Clayton, who missed her father that passed in 1896, thought a service to honor all fathers would help the grieving.
Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd is credited for being the one to popularize Father’s Day. In 1909, she heard a Mother’s Day sermon and thought that it might be nice to honor fathers as well. Her father, William Smart, had raised his SIX children alone on his farm in Washington after his wife died giving birth to their sixth child.
She proposed the idea to the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA and chose the 5th of June because it was her father’s birthday.
Father’s Day continued in a locally celebrated fashion, but it wasn’t made official until 1972.
Pictured is a statue of Andy Griffith and young Ron Howard in their roles as Sheriff Andy Taylor and his son Opie Taylor located at the Andy Griffith Museum in Mount Airy, NC.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Visit her on Facebook and read her blog series “Statues: The People They Salute” . Subscribe to her Substack Newsletter
Thank you Diana for sharing the story of Father’s Day and the well wishes!