It is interesting to know that Father's Day, which this year will be celebrated on June 16th, was, ironically, inspired by a Mother's Day sermon. Mrs. John Bruce Dodd, a Spokane Washington artist, is credited with fostering Father's Day. She got the idea while listening to her minister deliver an impassioned sermon on motherhood. Mrs. Dodd's mother had died young, so her father had to raise 6 children alone. As she listened to the minister, praise mothers for the hardship they endured in raising their children and tending to all the family needs. She reflected on her father's sacrifices, and speculated that there must be other fathers whose similar sacrifices went unrecognized. In a letter to the president of the Spokane Ministerial Association, Mrs. Dodd proposed a day to honor fathers. She suggested June 5th, her father's birthday, the association approved the idea, and the Spokane YMCA publicized it. However, the suggested date didn't allow the ministers enough time to prepare sermons, so the celebrated was scheduled for the 3rd Sunday in June. Thursday on June 19th, 1910. Spokane became the 1st city to honor fathers with a special day. A strong push for the National Father's Day came from Harry C. Meek, a president of the Uptown Lions Club of Chicago. Through the lions, or though the lions crowned him the originator of Father's Day, Meek admitted that the idea 1st occurred to him in 1915. 5 years after Mrs. Dodd's suggestion. He suggested it in speeches before several Lions Clubs, and the idea caught on.
The following year, President Wilson's participation in Father's Day ceremony by pressing the button in the nation's capital which unfurled the flag in Spokane. Despite this national gesture, many sections of the country did not take part. President Coolidge also showed interest in creating a national day to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children while in office. And in 1936, the National Father's Day committee was formed in New York City to promote the celebration actively on the national level. It was in 1957 that Senator Margaret Chase Smith stated that the official recognition of Mother's Day required that Father's Day receive the same honor. She stated that, “Congress has been guilty now for 40 years of the worst possible oversight, to say the least, perpetuated against the gallant of fathers, young and old of our land,” she said in her proposal. It was in 1972, the long wait for a national recognition came to an end when President Nixon signed the congressional resolution giving Father's Day the same status as Mother's Day. And so, now we know the rest of the story about Father's Day. Celebrate Father's Day, 2002.
Warm Thoughts from the Little Home on the Prairie Over a Cup of Tea Written by Dr. Luetta G Werner. Published in the Marion Record, June 13th, 2002.
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