Daddy Dearest

Father’ s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June in many countries, including India. This year, Father’ s Day was celebrated on June 21. IT all began with Sonora Dodd who was in church listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in May 1909. She lived in Spokane, a city in Washington, USA, and wanted to honour her dad William Smart, a Civil War veteran. Her mother had died while giving birth to Sonora and it was her dad who raised her and her five older siblings.

Dodd wanted Father’s Day to be celebrated the following year, 1910, on June 5, her father’s bir thday. She petitioned the city council for the day to be recognised. The mayor of Spokane pushed the date forward to June 19, 1910, because he required time to organise the event.

Young women presented red roses to their fathers during a church service. Roses were also handed around and attendees encouraged to pin on a rose in honour of their fathers — red for the living and white in memory of the dead. Dodd rode in a horsedrawn carriage through the city, bringing roses and gifts to fathers who could not make it to the festivities.

The US Congress declared Mother’s Day (second Sunday in May) an official holiday within six years of it being first celebrated, but took its own time to recognise Father’s Day! President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honouring fathers in 1966, but it wasn’t until 1972 that President Nixon signed Father’s Day legally and officially into an American holiday. 4144 / © 2020 Amrita Bharati, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan