On Mother's Day in 1910, Sonora Louise Dodd went to church. The sermon she heard there stirred her to action. But it wasn't the contents of the message that inspired her. On the contrary, Mrs. Dodd noticed what the minister had omitted. As he extolled the virtues of motherhood, he failed to make one mention of the value of fathers. This omission angered Mrs. Dodd. Fathers, she was sure, deserved equal credit.

Sonora was born in Jenny Lind, Arkansas, in 1882. When she was five, her parents, William and Ellen Smart, joined other pioneers seeking a better life in the West. Thev settled near Spokane, Washington. When Sonora was only sixteen years old, her mother died, leaving six children in the care of Mr. Smart. As the oldest, Sonora recognized the magnitude of the task confronting her father, and she tried to do her part in caring for her five brothers and sisters. She watched her father work and sacrifice to raise his children, and for the rest of her life she remembered his courage and devo­tion. Fathers deserved a special day, too, Sonora decided as she sat in church that Mother's Day. And she would be the one to finally do some­thing about it!

Sonora, who was by this time married and the mother of a small son, approached her minister with the idea of a day for fathers. With his encouragement, she appeared before the Spokane Ministerial Alliance to present her idea. She sug­gested that fathers be honored on June 5-her own father's birthday

The Ministerial Alliance was pleased with the idea, but they felt ministers would not have enough time to prepare special sermons if the day were celebrated on June 5. They decided instead to designate the third Sunday in June as their Father's Day. A local newspaper publicized the new holi­day, and store owners used their windows to dis­play appropriate gifts for fathers. On June 19, 1910, Spokane's first Father's Day, young men from the YMCA wore roses to church. A red rose honored a living father; a white rose was worn in memory of a deceased father. Mrs. Dodd herself rode through town in a horse-drawn carriage and distributed gifts to shut-in fathers.

Newspapers across the nation heard about Spokane's Father's Day and promoted the idea. William Jennings Bryan became one of the first nationally known figures to endorse the day; others soon followed his lead. In 1916, President Wilson spoke at Father's Day services in Spokane; and by the time William Smart passed away in 1919 the day his daughter had founded in his honor was celebrated throughout the United States.

Although the American people immediately began to recognize Spokane's Father's Day, Congress was hesitant to make it official. Letters were written, resolutions were presented, and speeches were made; but for years Congress resisted proclaiming Father's Day as a national holiday. Their fear was that such a proclamation would lead to over-commercialization. Sonora herself did not fear the commercial­ization of the holiday; she believed that publicity was the only means of ensuring that the American people would remember their fathers and pay tribute to their service, at least one day each year. In 1966-fifty-six years after that Mother's Day morning in church-Sonora wrote the last of a long line of letters to President Johnson and Senator Russell Long, urging them both to support a resolution elevating Father's Day to the same national status as Mother's Day. In 1971, the resolution passed.

Sonora Dodd died in 1978 at the age of ninety-six. She had lived a long and full life, gaining recognition for her art and her writing, including a series of children's books on the Native Americans of Spokane. And through it all she had remained devoted to the memory of her father. Sonora gave sixty-eight years of her life to the cause of honoring William Smart for his sac­rifice and his service to his six motherless chil­dren. By honoring her father, however, Sonora had reached beyond the limits of her own family and had given fathers everywhere the respect and tribute they deserved.

In the years since 1910 Father's Day has grown from a city-wide observance to a world­wide holiday. Today, more than thirty countries reserve a special day each year for their fathers. And each one of those fathers owes a special "thank you" to Sonora Smart Dodd-the mother of Father's Day.