Modern America appears to be unique in its honoring of fathers on a special day. The observance most similar to our Father's Day was the ancient Roman Parentalia, which lasted from the thirteenth of February to the twenty-second. This festival, however, was not for living fathers, but was rather a time of remembrance, commemorating departed parents and kinsfolk. The ceremonies were held, Ovid says to "appease the souls of your fahters." This annual observance became a family reunion. Members offered wine, milk, honey, oil and water at the flower-decorated graves. At the concluding ceremony, known as the Caristia, much celebrating went on as the living relatives feasted together, having been cleansed by the performance of their duties to the dead.
Father's Day for us, of course, is not intended for honoring the dead. We may pay a minor symbolic tribute by wearing a white rose; but far fewer of these are seen than white carnations at Mother's Day.
Mrs. John Bruce Dodd
Father's Day most influential promoter was Mrs. John Bruce Dodd of Spokane, Washington. The idea of a Father's Day celebration came to her first while listening to a sermon on Mother's Day in 1909. Her own father, William Jackson Smart, had accomplished the amazing task of raising six children -- Mrs. Dodd and her five brothers -- after his wife died at an early age. The sacrifices of her father on their eastern Washington farm called to mind the unsung feats of fathers everywhere.
With the support of her minister, Dr. Rasmus, she composed a letter to the Reverend Conrad Bluhm, president of the Spokane Ministerial Association, in which she set forth her proposal for Father's Day. The association approved of the idea, and the Spokane YMCA agreed to publicize it. Thus Spokane, in 1910, was the first city to honor fathers with a special day.
The day chosen by Mrs. Dodd was June 5, her father's birthday. However, because this did not allow sufficient time for the ministers to prepare sermons, the first Spokane Father's Day acually took place on the nineteenth -- the third Sunday in June. The mayor of Spokane issued a Father's Day Proclamation and the governor, M.E. Hay, set the date for an observance throughout the state.
Mrs. Dodd's suggestions for observing the day included wearing a flower -- a red rose to indicate a living father, and a white rose for a dead father.
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