The Mother of Father's Day, Sonora Dodd

Rez and Andy welcome Jerry Numbers to the show, a leader who is instrumental in carrying on the legacy of Sonora Smart Dodd, founder of Father's Day.

In 1909 when Sonora heard a Mother’s Day sermon at Central United Methodist Church in Spokane, she was inspired to propose that Father’s receive equal recognition. The following year with the assistance of Reverend Dr. Conrad Bluhm, her pastor at Old Centenary Presbyterian Church (now Knox Presbyterian Church), Sonora took the idea to the Spokane YMCA. The Spokane YMCA, along with the Ministerial Alliance, endorsed Dodd’s idea and helped it spread by celebrating the first Father’s Day in 1910. Sonora suggested her father’s birthday, June 5th, be established as the day to honor all Father’s. However, the pastors wanted more time to prepare, so June 19, 1910 was designated as the first Father’s Day and sermons honoring Father’s were presented throughout the city. It was years, however, before Father’s Day gained national prominence. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge recognized Father’s Day and urged the states to do likewise. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation calling for the third Sunday in June to be recognized as Father’s Day and requested that flags to be flown that day on all government buildings. President Richard M. Nixon signed a proclamation in 1972, permanently observing Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June.

Today Father’s Day is celebrated from Antigua to Zimbabwe in over 50 countries around the world.  

Jerry Numbers owns Sonora's former home which is on the National Historic Registry.  You can tour the home on Father's Day or by scheduling a tour.