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Family in the YMCA outdoor pool with child on dad shoulders

 

I am a new mom to a sweet, bright, and happy eight month old (nursing) baby girl. I remember my husband Justin looking at me after a few months in my new role as a mother and asking

Did you know Father’s Day began at the YMCA? It was founded in Spokane, WA, at the YMCA in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd, whose father, William Jackson Smart, had raised six children on his own.

child's crayon drawing with I love Dad

 

Inspired by a Mother’s Day sermon over 100 years ago, Sonora Louis Smart Dodd wondered why there was no similar holiday for fathers. One of six children, Dodd’s father was a single