American Minutewith Bill Federer
The first formal "Father's Day" was celebrated JUNE 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington.
Sonora Louise Smart Dodd heard a church sermon on the newly established Mother's Day and wanted to honor her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, who had raised six children by himself after his wife died in childbirth.
Sonora drew up a petition supported by the Young Men's Christian Association and the ministers of Spokane.
In 1916, Woodrow Wilson spoke at a Spokane Fathers' Day service.
President Nixon, in 1972, established Father's Day as a permanent national observance.
On Father's Day, 1988, Ronald Reagan said:
"Children, vulnerable and dependent, desperately need security, and it has ever been a duty and a joy of fatherhood to offer it.
Being a father requires strength...and more than a little courage...to persevere, to fight discouragement, and to keep working for the family."
Reagan continued:
"With God's grace, fathers find the patience to teach, the fortitude to provide, the compassion to comfort, and the mercy to forgive. All of this is to say that they find the strength to love their wives and children selflessly."
President Reagan ended:
"Let us...express our thanks and affection to our fathers, whether we can do so in person or in prayer."
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