Father’s Day
The Romans may have celebrated the first Father’s Day. Between February 13 and February 22, the Romans observed Parentalia. This feast memorialized deceased fathers only and not the living. Ovid wrote that the purpose of the holiday was to “appease the souls of your fathers”. The Romans would bring honey, oil and water to the graves of their father’s as an offering to their souls. Father’s Day, as we know it today, has been celebrated by families both big and small since 1910. In, 1909, Mrs. John B. Dodd who lived in Washington State was the first person to propose Father’s Day. Her father, William Smart, raised six children all by himself after his wife had died in childbirth. When Mrs. Dodd grew up and began to raise a family, she realized how hard her father worked to raise her and her siblings all by himself. She came up with the idea during a Mother’s Day sermon. She no longer had a mother to celebrate so she wanted to celebrate her father and all fathers. She got her wish. On June 19, 1910, the first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington. The YMCA of Spokane helped her publicize the event. Mrs. Dodd also proclaimed that the official flower of Father’s Day would be the rose. You are to wear a white rose to commemorate a deceased father and red rose to celebrate a living father. Father Day celebrations began to be held across the country. In 1912, J.H. Berringer organized a service at Irvington Church in Vancouver, Washington. In 1919, The Uptown Lion’s Club in Chicago held celebrations on the 3rd Sunday in June. This tradition continued for many years.President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, showed his support of Father’s Day and asked Congress to decree a National Father’s Day. He said during one speech that “the widespread observance of this occasion is calculated to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children, and also to impress upon father’s the full measure of their obligations.”It was not until 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation, that Father’s Day became a holiday. Across the Nation on the third Sunday in June, Fathers are celebrated for all the wonderful things they do for their families all year.
My Old Man~Mark Twain
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
No matter what you do this Father's Day, don't forget to feed him and feed him well.
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