Father’s Day may have arisen from W.Va. mining disaster

Father’s Day is just around the bend. It’s observed on the third Sunday in June. This year’s date is June 15.

Ample documentation has been assembled to suggest that both the Father’s Day and Mother’s Day holidays may have originated in West Virginia…in adjoining counties…in the early 1900s. Here’s the prevailing Father’s Day story:

Grace Golden Clayton was the first person to suggest a memorial church service be held in Marion County, W.Va., to honor the coal miners who were lost during catastrophic explosions at two Fairmont Coal Company mines in the community of Monongah on Dec. 6, 1907.

She shared her idea with her local pastor, the Rev. Robert T. Webb of Williams Methodist Episcopal Church South in nearby Fairmont, the county seat of Marion County. He agreed to officiate, and a special service was conducted on July 5, 1908, to celebrate the lives of the deceased miners and offer prayers for surviving family members.

In all, 362 men were killed in the mining accident, most of whom were fathers. Left behind were 216 widows and 475 children, with another 31 babies who were born after the tragedy. It has been described as “the worst mining disaster in American history.”

Later, Grace Golden Clayton said in an interview with The Fairmont Times: “It was partly the explosion that set me to think how important and loved most fathers are. All those lonely children and the heart-broken wives and mothers, made orphans and widows in a matter of a few minutes. Oh, how sad and frightening to have no father, no husband, to turn to at such a sad time.”

Surprisingly, the Father’s Day church service in Fairmont did not gain national attention. Grace Golden Clayton was a reserved and quiet person; she never promoted expanding the memorial service beyond the local community.

As other places made claims to be the “home of Father’s Day,” a Fairmont resident named Ward Downs, who had attended the Fairmont service in 1908, eventually spoke up. He wrote to U.S. Rep. Arch Moore (R-W.Va.) in 1962 to attest that indeed the first Father’s Day service was held in Fairmont, and Grace Golden Clayton and Rev. Webb were responsible for making it happen.

Fairmont has since taken ownership. Signage reads: “Welcome to Fairmont the Friendly City – Home of the first Father’s Day Service July 5, 1908.”

 

Some sources credit Sonora Louise Smart Dodd of Spokane, Wash., as the “mother of Father’s Day.” She put together a celebration June 19, 1910, to honor her own father. He was William Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran from Jenny Lind, another coal-rich community, located in Sebastian County, Ark.

William Smart didn’t mine coal; he “farmed” it. The family collected chunks of coal from the surface of their land and carted them to town for sale. The Smart family sold their property in 1887, made a bundle of cash and moved west to establish a “traditional farm” near Creston, Wash.

William’s wife, Ellen Victoria Cheek Smart, died in 1898, while delivering the couple’s sixth child. Now a widower, William became a single parent. Sonora would say: “He was both father and mother to me and my brothers and sisters. He offered love and protection…he ought to get some credit.”

Sonora petitioned leaders of the Spokane YMCA and the Spokane Ministerial Alliance to get behind the project, and area pastors delivered Father’s Day messages during Sunday services June 19, 1910.

The “story” was picked up by national the news services and distributed across the country.