History of Father’s Day

This is from an e-mail I received from American Minute.  It's a brief history of Father's Day.

American Minute with Bill Federer
June 19

The first formal “Father’s Day” was celebrated June 19, 1910.
It began in Spokane, Washington, when a woman named Sonora Louise Smart Dodd
heard a Mother’s Day sermon at church. She wanted to honor her father, who
raised six children by himself after his wife died.
Sonora drew up a petition that was supported by the Young Men’s Christian
Association and the ministers of Spokane.
President Nixon established Father’s Day as a permanent national observance in
1972.
On Father’s Day, 1988, President Ronald Reagan stated:
“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 in many ways…and more than a little
courage…to persevere, to fight discouragement, and to keep working for the
family.
In that strength, and 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…
Let us each take this occasion to express our thanks and affection to our
fathers, whether we can do so in person or in prayer.”
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