SHARING MANA‘O The
origin of Father’s Day is, as you would expect, entwined with the establishment of Mother’s Day. Inspired by the successful efforts of Anna Marie Jarvis to create a nationwide commemoration of mothers, another grateful daughter spearheaded a movement to recognize their male counterparts.
Sonora Smart Dodd was the eldest child and only daughter of Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart and Ellen Victoria Cheek Smart. Sonora was 16 when Ellen died in 1898, while giving birth to the family’s sixth child. With his daughter’s help, William raised five young boys as a single dad. Years later, in a newspaper interview, Sonora said, “He was both mother and father to me and my brothers.”
Hearing about the first Mother’s Day worship service in 1908 during a sermon at her own church, Sonora approached the Spokane (Wash.) Ministerial Alliance with a proposal to honor fatherhood in a similar fashion. On June 19, 1910, the first Father’s Day was observed, not just in Spokane, but statewide, through a proclamation by Washington’s governor.
Over the next several decades, Sonora continued her campaign to establish Father’s Day as a national holiday, but, as one florist put it, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.” Although Presidents Woodrow Wilson (in 1916) and Calvin Coolidge (in 1924) publicly supported the idea, it wasn’t until 1957 that a Father’s Day bill was introduced in Congress. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith wrote “… to single out just one of our two parents and omit the other is the most grievous insult imaginable.” Nine years later, President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday in
June as Father’s Day, and in 1972, President Richard Nixon officially established it as a permanent national observance.
Sunday will be the 21st Father’s Day that my son gets to celebrate as a dad. It’s also our 22nd without my father, who passed away less than a year before the first of Jimmy’s three daughters was born.
Jimmy was 2 1/2 years old when his father and I divorced. Though his dad remained a big part of his life, my son has always acknowledged Grandpa Yogi, my dad, as the central father figure of his childhood. Over the past couple of decades, I’ve watched with pride as Jimmy has become the 21st century version of my father, raising his daughters with a firm but fair hand and endless, unconditional love.
As far back as I can remember, my father told me that reading and music appreciation were the two greatest gifts a parent could give a child, because each would bring lifelong joy, and could never be taken away. He taught me to read before I turned 3, and always had time to listen to me read aloud from my books or recite poems and stories I’d written. At night, he and my mom would pick up their ukuleles and sing me to sleep.
Once, I asked my dad if he wished he had a son, too. Without hesitation, he replied that I was all he needed or wanted. We spent countless hours together playing make-believe, back when fathers were expected to just bring home the bacon and leave the kid stuff to mom. Not only did he teach me to read, he taught me how to throw a football and how to waltz.
Then came the terrible teens. At 18, I married against my parents’ wishes and my father refused to attend the wedding. But when we returned from our honeymoon a few days later, my father welcomed Jim into the family and remained gracious and respectful, not only through the marriage but the divorce as well. I married twice more after that; both times were virtually elopements, civil ceremonies without much fanfare — or my parents’ presence.
It used to sadden me to think that my father probably dreamed of walking me down the aisle, and I never gave him the chance. But on the last Father’s Day before he passed, I wrote him a letter apologizing for that and all the other heartaches I’d caused him. And I shared the realization that, since he had never walked me down the aisle, he hadn’t ever given me away at the altar. I was still, and would always remain, daddy’s girl.
■ Kathy Collins is a radio personality (The Buzz 107.5 FM and KEWE 97.9 FM/1240 AM), storyteller, actress, emcee and freelance writer whose “Sharing Mana‘o” column appears every other Wednesday. Her email address is kcmaui913@gmail.com.