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Father's Day Said to Have Its Roots in Neighboring State

Historians say the now-popular holiday started in two different states, West Virginia and Washington, as a church service in the beginning of the 20th century

Father’s Day, always the third Sunday in June, is the fourth-largest selling card holiday, behind Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmas, according to Hallmark’s corporate website. Approximately 94 million cards are exchanged every year for Father’s Day but only about half are given by children to their fathers. The rest go to husbands, brothers or uncles.

There’s still some debate about exactly how and where the holiday began – either in Fairmont, West Va. in 1908, or Spokane, Wash. in 1910. Some even say the tradition dates back to prehistoric Babylon, now modern-day Iraq.

 In 4000 B.C., Elmesu carved the first Father’s Day message in clay, wishing his father good health and a long life, according to several different sources on the web, including Hallmark. 

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Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays by Leigh Eric Schmidt credits Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane with formally introducing the holiday in 1910. Dodd was the daughter of William Jackson Smart, a single father and Civil War veteran who raised six children alone after the death of his wife in 1898.

Schmidt petitioned the Spokane Ministerial Association for an observance day for fathers on the third Sunday of June similar to Mother’s Day. The day would celebrate “the father’s place in the home, the training of children, the safeguarding of the marriage tie and the protection of womanhood and childhood,” according to Consumer Rites.

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The group endorsed Dodd’s petition, and pastors afterward began holding church services to the theme of fatherhood, the first of which was on June 19, 1910. In 1916, one church in Spokane gave flowers to the oldest father, the father with the most children, and the father with the youngest child.

Others hold that the first Father’s Day service was in Fairmont, West Va. on July 5, 1908.

It was suggested by Grace Golden Clayton, after her father, a minister, died in 1890 and 210 fathers were killed in a mine explosion in Monogah, West Va. in 1907. The service was held at Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, according to the website, First Father’s Day Service.

The city of Monogah doesn’t claim to have popularized the day in the United States, but merely to have held the first service.

President Richard Nixon made the day official in 1972 when he signed a congressional resolution setting the holiday for the third Sunday in June annually.

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