What’s the Word: Remembering dad on Father’s Day
Since today is Father’s Day, I thought I would go into the history of how the holiday to honor dads came about, and let you in on what some wise and famous people had to say about fatherhood and their own dads.
According to one of the many websites dedicated to the celebration of Father’s Day, Sonora Dodd, of Washington, was among the first who had the idea to devote a special day to honor fathers. She came up with the idea after hearing a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died during the birth of their sixth child.
Mr. Smart was then left to raise his newborn child, along with his other five children, on his own on his farm in Washington state. Upon reaching adulthood, Sonora began thinking about the selflessness her father had shown raising his family as a single parent and all the sacrifices he had made in doing so. She wanted to have a special day to honor him, so since her father was born in June, she held the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.
However, Dodd wasn’t the only one to promote the idea of a day to honor fathers. Dr. Robert Webb held what is thought to be the first Father’s Day service at the Central Church of Fairmont, West Virginia in 1908.
It was Dodd, though, who eventually was instrumental in the genesis of a national observance.
President Calvin Coolidge was in favor of a national Father’s Day as early as 1924, but it wasn’t until 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation that the third Sunday in June officially became Father’s Day nationwide.
Though society seems to consider mothers first, fathers have traditionally played a big part in their children’s lives as well, giving their offspring their family name and providing support, both monetary and emotional, throughout their lives.
Fathers are usually the authority figures within the family, and as such, have been the main targets of rebellious behavior as his children move toward the independence of adulthood. As a result, fathers have routinely been described as stern and unforgiving, when in most cases, underneath the authoritarian facade they feel society requires them present to the world, they are anything but. Most fathers will probably tell you they have as much of a soft spot for their children as their mothers do, they just don’t feel quite as free to show it.
I think most of us probably have wonderful memories of times when our own fathers let down their guard and showed that side of themselves. Those memories tend to remain with us for the rest of our lives and forge our own concept of what fatherhood means.
For all you fathers out there, make sure you provide as many of those moments as you can in between disciplining and directing your child in the ways of society. They will never forget.
Herewith some quotes from well-known individuals about their own fathers and fatherhood in general.
“A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.” – Enid Bagnold.
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” – William Shakespeare
“I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.” – Mario Cuomo
Happy Father’s Day all. God bless you.
(Charlie Johnson is news editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)