Village News - Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Mrs. John B. Dodd of Washington State, who first proposed the idea of a Father’s Day in 1909, wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart.

Smart, a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife, Dodd’s mother, died in childbirth with their sixth child. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children alone on a rural farm in eastern Washington State.

It was after Dodd became an adult that she realized the strength and selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent.

The first Father’s Day was formally observed June 19, 1910, in...