Father's Day Originated In Spokane

It really kills me how little is made of dads! How are men supposed to embrace fatherhood if we don't honor them for the incredible hard work they do in being dads? Today in church, hardly anything was said about it - ach! I hardly think this post is going to make up for it.

This article again brings out the fact that this holiday has not been celebrated for that long, (since 1909) again showing how short a time we have been 'civilized' and in how short a time we are tearing it down. It also tells us that, of all people, Richard Nixon made this into a firm holiday in 1972. Who would have thought?

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Sonora Smart Dodd sat in church on Mother's Day in 1909, and didn't like what she heard.

The Rev. Harry Rasmus was rambling on about the importance of mothers, but had nothing to say about fathers.

Dodd decided then that men like her father, William Smart - a widowed Civil War veteran who raised his six children on a farm - needed a similar holiday, and embarked on a lifelong quest to make it happen.

It was a long slog for the Spokane woman.

While Mother's Day was quickly accepted as a national holiday, it took decades for fathers to get the same acclaim. Father's Day only this year is celebrating its 35th anniversary since President Nixon made it a permanent holiday in 1972.

Read the rest of the article here, and have a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DADS! Don't let anyone undermine your importance.