History of Father’s Day

_Elsa_

Back at home! It’s lunch time but she ate too many stripped red fishies at the candy store so she’s not even hungry.  Might as well get back on the computer to see what else she can find. The history of this holiday! She almost forgot to look that up.

Tiffi begins reading this one article that seems to have a lot of information on the history. 

‘The first known Father’s Day service occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908, thanks to the efforts of Grace Golden Clayton. The service was to honor all fathers, especially those hundreds who were killed during a devastating mine explosion in Monongah (just a few miles from Fairmont) the previous year. However, the observance did not become an annual event, and it was not promoted—very few outside the local area knew about it.

In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, also was inspired to create a holiday honoring fathers. William Jackson Smart, her father, was a farmer and Civil War veteran that raised Sonora and her five younger brothers by himself after his wife, Ellen, died giving birth to their youngest child in 1898. While attending a Mother’s Day church service in 1909, Sonora, then 27, came up with the idea.

Within a few months, Sonora had convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA to set aside a Sunday in June to celebrate fathers. She proposed June 5, her father’s birthday, but the ministers chose the third Sunday in June so that they would have more time after Mother’s Day (the second Sunday in May) to prepare their sermons. So it was that on June 19, 1910, Sonora delivered presents to handicapped fathers, boys from the YMCA decorated their lapels with fresh-cut roses (red for living fathers, white for the deceased), and the city’s ministers devoted their homilies to fatherhood.’ (Info here)

Let’s continue with the next part of the story - Kimmy is not happy

Start at the beginning – Let’s celebrate Father’s Day 2020