Origin of Father’s Day

Having investigated the history of Mother’s Day in May, it is only fitting to do the same for Father’s Day, so here goes.

Father’s Day began with a church service in Fairmont, West Virginia in July 1908, after hundreds of men died in one of the worst mining accidents in American history. The daughter of a minister, Grace Golden Clayton, proposed a service to honour those fathers who had died, and all fathers.

Meantime in Spokane, Washington, Sonora Smart Dodd came up with the idea of a Father’s Day in 1909. Her father was a single parent who had raised Sonora and her five brothers alone, after his wife died giving birth to their youngest child in 1898.

At the age of 27, Sonora convinced the Ministerial Association and the YMCA to set aside a Sunday in June to celebrate fathers. Thus, on 19 June 1910 the first Father’s Day was celebrated. Presents were delivered by Sonora to handicapped fathers, the YMCA boys wore fresh red roses in their lapels to honour living fathers and fresh white roses to honour fathers who had died, and the city’s ministers devoted their sermons that day to fathers.

Here, Father’s Day was first observed in Auckland in July 1929 at St Matthew’s Church. Two years later other churches adopted the day. With Australia moving to recognise Father’s Day at the beginning of September, in 1935 New Zealand followed suit with services in Wellington in 1937 and Christchurch in 1938.