The first observance of Father’s Day actually took place in Fairmont West Virginia
on July 5, 1908. It was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been lost in the Monongah Mining
disaster several months earlier in Monongah West Virginia, on December 6,1907.It 
was never officially registered as a holiday.

All the credit for Father’s Day went to Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Washington who 
conducted her celebration in 1910. A bill to accord national recognition of the
holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. In 1916,President Woodrow Wilson
went to Spokane to speak in a Father’s Day celebration and wanted to make it
official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.   
  
  US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by
the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Six years later, the day was
made a permanent national holiday when President Nixon signed it into law in 1972.

  
        Sonora Dodd, now known as the Mother of Father’s Day.

                               HAPPY FATHER’S DAY PAT!

In 1942, while attending Van Nuys High School, Norma Jeane Mortenson
(Marilyn Monroe) began a relationship with a neighbor’s son, 21-year-old
Jim Dougherty. He had been a football star and student body president at
Van Nuys High School. The couple were soon married less than three
weeks after Norma Jeane’s sixteenth birthday. The marriage lasted until
June of 1946. 

Jim Dougherty joined the Merchant Marines in 1943. He is seen 
here with Norma Jeane before being sent overseas in 1944.