A Bit of Father's Day History

Best dad ever!

The celebration of Father’s Day started from one woman’s simple wish to honor her father. Listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909 inspired Sonora Smart Dodd to pay her father, a Civil War veteran who raised his six children on his own following his wife’s death, the tribute he deserved.

On June 19 the next year, the first Father’s Day sermon was heard in Spokane, Washington. Five decades later, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order that set the official celebration of Father’s Day to every third Sunday of June. Then in 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a law that recognized Father’s Day as an annual national holiday in the United States.

Father’s Day goes hand in hand with Mother's Day as a time to honor the unconditional love and care of parents.

Have YOU called your dad today?