June 28, 2026 - "Father's Day Origin"

Let’s go back to 1908 when Grace Golden Clayton proposed a day to honor fathers who died in a mining disaster.  This did not become an established holiday.  The impetus really began when Sonora Smart Dodd along with her five brothers attended a service honoring mothers in Spokane, Washington in 1909.  She asked herself why there wasn’t a day set aside to honor fathers.  Sonora though of her own father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran and the sacrifices he and the men of his generation had made on behalf of the United States.  They deserved to be recognized for all they had done. In Sonora’s mind this lack of due honor was an injustice, and she was determined to fix it. The first Father’s Day celebration took place on June 19, 1910, after she and her five brothers convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association to hold the observance in Spokane that year.  She wanted to see it become a national observance in every state of the union and became more active in promoting the idea  in the 1930’s when interest in the idea seem to decline. Her determined effort paid off. Father’s Day became a U.S. national observance when President Richard Nixon signed it into law.

 

Long before the U.S. holiday, Catholic countries in Europe celebrated fatherhood on March 19 (the Solemnity of Saint Joseph). The Catholic Church promoted this observance from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century.  The tradition spread to the Americas through Spanish and Portuguese influence.

 

Let me close this column with a blessing for Fathers taken from chapter 56 of the Book of Blessings:

 

God our Father, in your wisdom and love you made all things. Bless these men, that they may be strengthened as Christian fathers. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, their sons and daughters, may honor them always with a spirit of profound respect. 

 

Grant this through Christ our Lord. 

 

Until next week,

Fr. John