sparkle7_6397.gif

Home
About Me
Still a child at heart
Night out
UK
Happiness
Fairy tales
Friends
Recipes
Kitchen Hints
Buffy & Angel
Fun-stuff
Ringer Tones
Site Awards
Awards
Favorite Links
'' Contact Me ''

 History of Father's Day

United States and Canada are among the few countries those honour fathers with a special day every year and the history of this holiday is interesting. Every 3rd Sunday in June is set aside for this special day. There is some debate as to when the first Father’s Day actually took place, but history generally acknowledges that a woman named Sonora Dodd was the most active in promoting this day for dads.

Sonora Dodd was from Spokane Washington and when listening to a sermon about mothers on Mother’s Day in 1908, she got the idea of honouring fathers as well. Sonora’s father was a civil war veteran who along with his wife was raising their 5 children on a farm in eastern Washington state. It was during the birth of their sixth child that his wife died, leaving her father, William Smart, to raise the 6 children by him.

It is no wonder that Sonora thought of her father on mother’s day as she had grown up seeing his tireless efforts and sacrifice to keep his family together. She wanted to honour him and all the fathers like him who raised their children in such a dedicated and selfless way. So Sonora spoke to the pastor of her church and told him of her idea. She had originally picked June 5th as the date of the first Father’s Day since it was her own father's birthday, but as the church and community couldn’t organise the event that quickly, they settled on the third Sunday of June.

It wasn’t too long before the idea caught on with other cities and states and soon many states and organisations began to lobby congress to declare Father’s Day an official U.S. holiday much like Mother’s Day.

Finally in 1924 Father’s Day became national when President Calvin in order to "establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations", agreed with the idea of a national Father’s Day. However it was not until 1966 under President Lyndon Johnson, that Father’s Day became official when he signed a Presidential Proclamation that declared every 3rd Sunday in June would be set aside to honour Father’s. In 1972 President Richard Nixon then made that 3rd Sunday in June a permanent national observance, a little behind Mother’s day which was official almost 60 years before!

fd11.gif

GOD'S TEN MOST WANTED MEN

1. The man who puts God's business above other business.
2. The man who brings his children to church rather than sending them.
3. The man who is willing to be the right example to every boy he meets.
4. The man who thinks more of his Sunday school Class than he does of his Sunday sleep.
5. The man who measures his giving by what he has left rather than by the amount he gives.
6. The man who goes to church for Christ's sake, rather than for his own or someone else's.
7. The man who has more passion to help others than he had to be helped himself.
8. The man who can see his own faults before he sees the faults of others.
9. The man who stands firm in his convictions, based upon the Word of God, that is a "backbone" Christian.
10. The man who is more concerned about winning souls for Christ than he is about winning honour.

spinlink.gif

Quotes About Dad
 
A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again." -- Enid Bagnold

"It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all." -- Alice Walker

"None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of SUCH a Father who has not his equal in this world-so great, so good, so faultless. Try, all of you, to follow in his footsteps and don't be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal." -- Victoria, Queen of England

"That is the thankless position of the father in the family-the provider for all, and the enemy of all." -- J. August Strindberg

"It is a wise father that knows his own child." -- William Shakespeare

"It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was." -- Anne Sexton

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." -- English Proverb

"To be a successful father . . . there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years." -- Ernest Hemingway

"A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father." -- Gabriel García Márquez

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud

"I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example." -- Mario Cuomo

"Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?
He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee."
-- Margaret Courtney

"If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right." -- Bill Cosby

"Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!" -- Lydia M. Child

spinlink.gif

More about Fathers Day..

     Father's Day is a day of commemoration and celebration of Dad. It is a day to not only honours your father, but all men who have acted as a father figure in your life - whether as Stepfathers, Uncles, Grandfathers, or "Big Brothers."

spaceIt is a time of burnt toast and breakfast in bed, family gatherings, crayon scribbled "I Love Your's and of course that lovely new tie!

So buckle up, turn up the radio and get ready for a Father's Day ride with some fun Holiday things for you, your family, and your Dad. space

We've got stories to read, music to enjoy, puzzles and games to play, pictures for the kids to colour, and a chance to honour YOUR DAD at our celebration! So bring your kids and tell your friends. And please stop by again. space

Father's Day is celebrated in the US on Sunday, June 19, 2005. Other Countries celebrate throughout the year.

treasure.gif

Still a child at heart

The true me