For What to Expect’s "Mom Heroes" series, parents who have gone to great lengths to help others share their inspirational stories.
Father’s Day is all about celebrating dads, and beyond the hokey or jokey greeting cards, there’s a real admiration for dads and one person to thank for the tradition: Sonora Smart Dodd, aka the “Mother of Father’s Day.”
Dodd advocated for 62 years to make Father's Day an official day of recognition for dads everywhere, and her inspiration came from her very own father. He raised six kids on his own after his wife, their mother, died.
Now, every June, families across the country come together to show appreciation for all the fathers in their lives.
After losing her mom at a young age, Sonora Smart Dodd watched her father raise six kids on his own.
Sonora was inspired by her father’s dedication and petitioned for Father's Day to become a national day of celebration.
Now, every June, fathers from around the country are celebrated thanks to Dodd, and her legacy lives on forever.
Inspired by her own father’s dedication, she advocated for the very first Father’s Day celebration
In 1898, Dodd’s mother, Ellen Victory Cheek-Billingsley Smart, died when Sonora was 16 years old. Her father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran, took on the role of primary caregiver for Dodd and her five brothers. A decade later, Dodd sat in church listening to a Mother’s Day sermon and couldn’t help but feel like something (or better yet, someone) was missing from the celebration … Dad.
“It was full of adulation about motherhood,” she said, according to a June 1959 article published in the Spokesman Review.[1] “The preacher was very eloquent, and he never mentioned the word ‘father.’ I began thinking of my mother, who passed away in 1898 while I was yet a child. My thoughts naturally turned to my father, William J. Smart, who was left with the responsibility of rearing six children.”
Dodd described her father as a “real disciplinarian,” she continued. “But he was also a kind and loving parent who kept us together and happy. I thought it would be nice to have a day honoring him and others like him.”
At this time, the country celebrated Mother’s Day every May, but there was no formal day set to recognize the role of fathers. She drafted a petition to recommend a new national holiday to be celebrated on her father’s birthday, June 5.
It was signed by YMCA members, Mark Wheeler and George Forbes, and “enthusiastically endorsed” by her entire local YMCA in Spokane, Washington, according to a June 1972 article published in The New York Times.[2] The petition called for a day to celebrate “the father’s place in the home, the training of children, the safeguarding of the marriage tie, the protection of womanhood and children.”
The idea of Father’s Day wasn’t universally embraced,” Ashley Rubenstein, Public Relations Manager at YMCA of the USA tells What to Expect. “While Sonora gathered support through petitions, some scoffed at the notion, joking that a ‘National Fishing Day’ would be more fitting.” But Sonora remained undeterred and refused to give up.
She received proclamations from Spokane’s mayor and Governor M. E. Hay for the third Sunday of June to be recognized as Father’s Day in Washington. People were encouraged to wear red roses to honor living fathers and white roses for those who had died.[3]
The story captured national attention, and in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson (who approved a resolution for Mother’s Day in 1914) used a special telegraph key to unfurl a flag in Spokane from his desk in the Oval Office, which was the official way to notify someone that something was a go.[4]
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recommended that the nation celebrate the day, but it wasn’t until 1966 that President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first Presidential Father’s Day Proclamation.[5] Six years after President Johnson’s proclamation, and 62 years after Dodd’s first Father’s Day, President Richard Nixon declared it a permanent holiday in 1972.
“Thanks to her persistence, what began as a heartfelt tribute to one father’s love became a lasting national tradition,” says Rubenstein.
Dodd’s love for her father will forever live on as we celebrate ‘Father’s Day’ each year
These days, we often associate Father’s Day with discounts on barbecues and golf clubs — and the commercialization of the holiday wasn’t lost on Dodd. Even still, she continued championing the idea that dads and father figures should have a special day of their own.
“I love seeing fathers get gifts,” she told The New York Times in 1972. “All the cards, advertising and special promotions have done one major thing — focused attention on observance of the day.”
Dodd’s home in Spokane was added to the National Register of Historic Places 100 years after the first Father’s Day, and there’s a plaque recognizing her as the “Mother of Father’s Day.” More than 2,500 YMCA locations offer programs to connect children and their dads, and there’s a cornerstone monument at one of the YMCAs in Spokane dedicated to Dodd.[6]
Though she died in 1978, Logan Camporeale, a historic preservation specialist in Spokane, says Dodd’s legacy lives on in the city of Spokane.
“Some churches still have Father’s Day sermons,” he says. “And, the city of Spokane has made a habit of recognizing Sonora Smart Dodd on the anniversary celebrations of the first Father’s Day.”
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