Father’s Day creator was Spokane native, descendant says

LOS ANGELES (AP) - This Father's Day, Betsy Roddy will write two cards: one to her dad, and the other to her late great-grandmother, Sonora Smart Dodd.

Dodd is the Mother of Father's Day, the woman who launched the celebration in 1910 in her hometown of Spokane, Washington.

Roddy, who is Dodd's last direct descendant, says inspiration came as her great-grandmother sat through a Mother's Day sermon in 1909, wondering why there was no Father's Day.

Dodd's own father had raised six children on his own after his wife died.

His daughter decided he and other fathers deserved credit for things like that.

After the first celebration, Dodd lobbied for decades to make Father's Day an official federal holiday. President Richard Nixon did so in 1972.

Now, Dodd's great-granddaughter is keeping the day's history alive.