What relation was Sonora Smart Dodd to the father she honored?

Sonora Smart Dodd was the daughter of William Jackson Smart, the father she honored by promoting Father’s Day.

Dodd held her father in high esteem because he raised six children as a single parent after his wife died in childbirth. She was the only daughter and helped care for her younger brothers, an experience that shaped her belief that fathers deserved a holiday comparable to Mother’s Day.

After hearing a Mother’s Day sermon in Spokane in 1909, Dodd approached the city’s ministerial alliance. She first proposed celebrating her father’s birthday, June 5, but the group selected the third Sunday of June instead. Spokane held the first observance on June 19, 1910.

Dodd was not born in Washington: she was born in Arkansas in 1882. Her family moved to a farm near Spokane when she was seven, and Washington became the place most closely connected with her Father’s Day campaign.