THE GOOD, THE D

MODERN celebrations started with dedicated (or dadicated) father William Jackson Smart – probably Billy Smart to his friends.

He was born in 1842 and fought in the American Civil War (he won). Billy’s first wife died, leaving him to raise five boys and a girl on his own.

Bill had four children from his first marriage, six from his second and three stepchildren that he gathered along the way. Thirteen kids? Unlucky for some…at least unlucky for the two wives who died on him.

His oldest daughter, Sonora Smart Dodd, heard a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909 and thought Bill deserved his own day. She campaigned for a new holiday celebrating her dad and others like him.

Father’s Day was set for the third Sunday in June and the idea spread across America.

Will died in 1919. In 1972 President Nixon declared it a national holiday. Sonora lived to see it before she died in 1978 at the age of 96.