SONARA Dodd, of Washington, first had the idea of a Father’s Day. She thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Sonora wanted a special day to honour her father, William Smart. Smart, who was a Civil War veteran, was widowed with six children when his wife died in childbirth. Mr. Smart raised the new-born and his other five children by himself on a farm in Washington state.

Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on June 19, 1910.

President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father’s Day. In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which made it permanent in 1972.