Father's Day is celebrating its 112th anniversary this year on June 20. How did this holiday begin?
While sitting in church in May 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, paid close attention to the Mother’s Day sermon that was being given. She decided she wanted to honor her father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War Veteran, who single handedly raised Sonora and her five siblings after her mother passed away in childbirth.
The following year, Sonora petitioned for the holiday to be recognized in her city. At the first Father's Day celebration, young women handed out red roses to their fathers during church services, and baskets full of roses were passed around, with attendees donning a rose in honor of their fathers - red for the living and white in memory of the deceased. After that service, Dodd brought her infant son along on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the city, bringing roses and gifts to home-bound fathers.
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