As we pause to celebrate Father’s Day 2024, we continue a tradition which began way back in 1910. Ironically, credit for beginning Father’s Day is given to a woman. Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington came up with the idea during a Mother’s Day church service on June 20, 1909.

When Sonora was 16, her mother died giving birth to her sixth child. Sonora’s father took on the challenge of single parenthood. In her mind, he excelled. 

For Sonora, honoring her father was a labor of love. Extending that honor to celebrate   Father’s Day for other fathers became her cause. Thanks to her vision and tenacity, the first Father’s Day was observed in Washington on June 19, 1910. Her idea spread like wildfire across the USA, as more and more states adopted Father’s Day.

In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recognized Father’s Day as the third Sunday in June of that year. He encouraged the states to follow his lead. In 1956, Congress officially recognized Father’s Day in a joint resolution. Ten years later, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed the third Sunday in June to be Father’s Day. Finally, in 1972, President Richard Nixon made observance of  Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June permanent. Sonora Smart Dodd survived to see her dream become a legacy - for her own beloved father - and deserving dads all across America. 

Notice the words “deserving dads.” The ability to sire a child is necessary, but not sufficient, for fatherhood. I learned that lesson the hard way, from a man I never really knew. He was a prolific procreator, but a failure as a father - at least to me. 

In my view, the sufficient condition for true fatherhood is pure love - unadulterated and unconditional - even when that love is unrequited. As George Strait sang so well, “It’s a love without end, Amen.”

The world has turned over many times since Sonora Smart Dodd died in 1978, at the ripe old age of 96. I doubt that Father’s Day 2024 is what she had in mind. Like a lot of what passes for contemporary American culture, fatherhood has taken on new and expanded meanings, including who’s the daddy in same-sex marriages and other variations of family life.

As a devotee of traditional marriage, I turned to the experts on alternatives, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for information. Their Stylebook Supplement on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Terminology told me more than I cared to know, but next to nothing about the role of fatherhood in their myriad living arrangements. For example, there was no separate listing defining “father.” The term is           alluded to under the the generic “Parent” heading; otherwise, uncovered - as far as I could tell.  

Fortunately, for the rest of us, the true meaning of Father’s Day is etched deeply in our hearts, minds, memories and souls. And that’s a good thing.

Retired Army Col. Thomas B. Vaughn can be reached at tbvbwmi@benlomand.net