Father’s Day Contemplations
By Dennis Jamison ——Bio and Archives--June 16, 2024
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Father’s Day is not what it was intended to be according to the original concept of the “mother” of the day to honor fathers, Sonora Smart Dodd. In the politically and socially divisive landscape across America today, people have trouble identifying a real father. Mrs. Dodd’s idea was born from listening to a sermon on Mother’s Day in her local church in Washington state. Sonora Smart was sixteen when her mother died. Being the only daughter, she took on a mother’s role to help her father raise her five brothers. The history is well worth reading, but America is much different from the early 1900s when the first Father's Day celebrations were observed.
Yet in those days, as now, families were severely threatened when fathers went missing from the home. Whether through war, hazardous employment conditions leading to disability or even death, debilitating diseases, or simply going AWOL, the loss of the father in the family meant a devastating impact upon the home. In Sonora Smart’s family, they suffered with the loss of her mother. Her dad, William Jackson Smart, was a Civil War veteran, and he dedicated himself to raising all six children, according to Mrs. Dodd. She is quoted as sharing that her father was "a very strict man, a real disciplinarian," but also a "kind and loving parent who kept us together and happy."
The story of the creation of Father’s Day is inspiring to me because as an adopted child, I never knew my biological father. But, that did not really leave emotional scars because the father I had known through my life was the dad who raised me as a loving parent doing his best to keep the family together despite serious challenges. But, I have learned, after a fairly long life, that I was incredibly fortunate being adopted into a loving family. The horror stories I learned of as I grew up caused me to wonder why families in the land of freedom and a “land of plenty” were so messed up.
Later, I realized that........
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