Sonora Smart Dodd
Sonora Smart Dodd (February 18, 1882 – March 22, 1978) was the daughter of American Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, and was responsible for the founding of Father's Day. Early life Sonora Louise Smart was born in Jenny Lind, Sebastian County, Arkansas to William Jackson Smart (1842–1919) and his wife Ellen Victoria Cheek Smart (1851–1898) on February 18, 1882. In 1889, when Sonora was seven years old, the Smart family moved from Marion, Arkansas, to a farm west of Spokane, Washington between Creston and Wilbur. When Sonora was 16, her mother died in childbirth with her sixth child. Sonora was the only daughter and shared with her father William in the raising of her younger brothers, including her new infant brother Marshall. Sonora Smart married John Bruce Dodd (1870–1945), one of the original founders of Ball & Dodd Funeral Home, and had a son, John Bruce "Jack" Dodd, born in 1909. Father's Day Though a Father's Day service was held on July 5, 1908 in West Virginia to honor the fathers killed in the Monongah Mine Disaster, it is Sonora Smart Dodd who is credited as the founder of the official American national holiday. Smart held her father in