Have you ever wondered where Father’s Day originated?  Who created it?  when and why?  This June 2010 marks the 100th celebration of Father’s Day, now a national holiday which is observed in America and around the world every year.  Sonora Louise Smart Dodd is the Spokane resident who founded Father’s Day. 

 

Born in 1882 in Arkansas, seven year-old Sonora Louise Smart travelled on a wagon train with her family to farmland just west of Spokane.  When she was 16, Sonora’s mother died, leaving Sonora, five young children, and her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, to survive the rigors of farm life.  Sonora helped her father raise her younger siblings and never forgot her father’s love, courage, and devotion to his family. 

 

By the time Mother’s Day dawned in May 1909, Sonora Louise Smart had become the wife of Spokane businessman John Bruce Dodd, the loving mother of John “Jack” Bruce Dodd Jr. (the Dodd’s only child), and a woman with an idea that would touch the lives of millions of people throughout the world.  Sitting in Central Methodist Church in 1909 in downtown Spokane on Mother’s Day Sunday, Sonora thought of her father who had taken on the difficult role of both father and mother after her mother died, and decided that fathers deserved recognition just as much as mothers did.  A year later in June 1910, Sonora had developed an idea she called “Father’s Day,” which she created in honor of her father.  Sonora discussed the idea with her minister, met with Spokane clergy of the Ministerial Alliance of Spokane and leaders of the Spokane Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), and suggested that all fathers be honored on June 5th, which was her father’s birthday.  Spokane’s Ministerial Alliance liked the proposal but felt Spokane ministers would not have enough time to prepare special father-honoring sermons before June 5th of that year.  They instead designated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. 

 

The first Father’s Day sermon was given at the Centenary Presbyterian Church in Spokane (now Knox Presbyterian) on June 19, 1910, and after that sermon, Sonora began her campaign to promote the idea of Father’s Day.  Her idea of honoring fathers became her life’s work and eventually led to a proclamation signed in 1972 by United States President Richard Nixon which made Father’s Day an official American holiday observed each year on the third Sunday of June.  The historic Dodd House is a special place in Spokane as the home where Sonora lived from 1913 to 1950, and where she worked tirelessly to spread her idea of Father’s Day.  Historically and architecturally significant, the John Bruce & Sonora Smart Dodd House is listed on the Spokane Register and the Washington State Heritage Register, and will be reviewed in Washington DC for listing on the National Register in 2010, the centennial year for the celebration of Father’s Day.