Did you know?

Senora Louise Smart Dodd was born to William Smart, a Civil War soldier, and Ellen Victoria Cheek Dodd in 1882. Senora was the only daughter in a family of six children. When Senora was 16, her mother died in childbirth with her sixth child. Senora stepped up to help her father raise all of her siblings in Washington state. Seeing all that her own father did to keep the family together, and after hearing a church sermon about Mother's Day, Senora decided fathers were equally deserving of the honor. She approached the Spokane Ministerial Alliance and suggested her own father's birthday (June 5) as a day to honor fathers. Although her efforts began in the early 1900s, it wasn't until 1972 under President Richard Nixon that a permanent observance of Father's Day on the third Sunday of June was established. Senora got to see her dream come to fruition and witnessed four other actual Father's Day observances. She died at the age of 96 in 1978.