Did you know that, according to a recent poll, 64% of families honor their fathers on that special day with cards, gifts and special dinner celebrations.

The first Father’s day was proposed by Mrs. Sonora Louise Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington,  in 1909. Mrs. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, who was widowed when his wife died in childbirth after their sixth child was born. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself. Mrs. Dodd wanted Father’s Day to be celebrated on the first Sunday in June, her father’s birthday.

It wasn’t until 1966 that President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father’s Day. In 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father’s Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. Coming almost sixty years after Mother’s Day had been proclaimed a National day of observance.

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