FATHER’S DAY TRIVIA
The idea of Father's Day was conceived in Spokane, Washington by Sonora Dodd while she listened to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.
Dodd (now known as "the mother of Father's Day") wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who was left to raise his six children on a farm.
The following year, June 19, 1910 was chosen for the first Father's Day celebration, proclaimed by Spokane's mayor because it was the month of William Smart's birth.
Decades later, the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was issued in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Father's Day has been celebrated annually since 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it permanent.
Happy Father's Day!
