Sonora Smart Dodd: Founder of Father’s Day.

OAN’s Brooke Mallory
11:26 AM – Sunday, June 18, 2023

You might say that she is the Father’s Day matriarch. Sonora Smart Dodd founded the “Father’s Day” holiday in her hometown of Spokane, Washington, in 1910. As a result, Dodd is the one to thank for those annual gifts and dad-focused celebrations.

Dodd started the custom and got the idea in the first place while sitting in a Spokane church on Mother’s Day in 1909, listening to a sermon about mothers.

“And it bugged her,” Dodd’s great-granddaughter, Betsy Roddy, told The Associated Press. “She thought, ’Well, why isn’t there a Father’s Day?’”

Dodd and her five younger brothers had been raised solely by their father, since their mother had died during childbirth back in 1898.

Her father, William Jackson Smart, went into farming after serving in the Civil War. He not only handled both parenting responsibilities, but he did it with leadership and love, as Dodd frequently said, and she believed that her father deserved more credit.

“So she worked tirelessly with the local clergy and got the YWCA on board, and they had their first Father’s Day in Spokane in 1910,” said Roddy.

Although the report projected that the holiday would be celebrated countrywide by the next year, Father’s Day was slow to catch on. So much so that Dodd spent the next 62 years pleading for support from notable figures to everyday people like presidents and local shopkeepers.

Finally, 37^th President Richard Nixon designated the third Sunday in June a federal holiday honoring all fathers in 1972. Dodd, who died in 1978 at the age of 96, had lived to see her wish come true.

The matriarch of Father’s Day was a Renaissance lady who was a painter, poet, and hard-working entrepreneur who ran a funeral home with her husband while raising one son.

“I take a great deal of pride in that renegade spirit that she clearly had,” said Roddy. “It’s time for me to pick up the baton and carry it proudly,” she says with a smile. “I’m the last direct descendant. The legacy is here, which is an honor.”

Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

After Bill Gates met with China’s Xi Jinping, Antony Blinken’s meeting comes amid rising tensions and China’s plans to spy on the U.S. from Cuba.

California proposes taking so-called affirmation of a child’s gender identity into account in child custody disputes. Here’s One America’s Sam Valk with more.

This week has been filled with major headlines in the US and around the world. One America’s Rachel Acenas has more in our Week in Review.

Guggenheim Baseball Management, which owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, is going ahead with their salute to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -U.S. chipmaker Intel Corp will spend $25 billion on a new factory in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on…

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said on Friday services on its social media apps Facebook and Instagram were restored, more than two hours after…

(Reuters) – Microsoft, which is seeking to buy games giant Activision, faces two legal fights in coming weeks with U.S. antitrust enforcers…

By Angus Berwick and Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. affiliate of crypto giant Binance has carried out a round of…