Father’s Day 2017
Written by Tony Mussari, Sr.
Edited by Kitch Loftus-Mussari
Photographs by Tony Mussari, Sr.
Copyright 2017
Mussari-Loftus Associates, LTD
The Face of America Project
My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. Clarence B. Kelland
A father’s tears and fears are unseen, his love is unexpressed, but his care and protection remains as a pillar of strength throughout our lives. Ama H.Vanniarachchy
The History of Father’s Day
The very first observation of Father’s Day in America
was not a celebration at all. It was a memorial to 367 miners who lost their lives in Monongah, West Virginia. The accident left 1,000 children fatherless, and it created 250 widows.
Grace Golden Clayton with the help of Dr. Thomas Webb, organized a memorial service to honor all the miners who died in the worst mining accident in American history. She suggested it be July 5, 1908.
Two years later, in 1910, Sonora Smart Dodd organized a celebration in Spokane, Washington, to honor her father and all fathers.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson observed Father’s Day with his family.
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution designed to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children. The intent of the resolution was to make fathers more responsible to their family obligations.
In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson used an executive order to give Father’s Day a specific date, the third Sunday in June.
In 1972 during the Nixon administration, congress passed an act officially making Father’s Day a national holiday.
Thoughts About Fathers
On this special day, Kitch and I would like to share a few observations about fathers. They reflect the light of wonderful fathers we had.
It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons. Friedrich Schiller
Fathers and daughters have a special bond. She is always daddy’s little girl. Richard L. Ratliff
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong. Charles Wadsworth
A man’s daughter is his heart. Just with feet, walking out in the world. Mat Johnson
A father should be his son’s first hero, and his daughter’s first love. Author Unknown
The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them. Confucius
To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter. Euripides
Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express. Joseph Addison
The greatest gift I ever had came from God, and I call him Dad! Author Unknown
The Gift of Dad
We would like to end this article with the poetic and positive words of Ella Wheeler Wilcox:
Father 
He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just little short of God;
Oh you should have heard the way they said his name –
‘Father.’
There seemed to be a loving little prayer
In their voices, even when they called him ‘Dad.’
Though the man was never heard of anywhere,
As a hero, yet somehow understood
He was doing well his part and making good;
And you knew it, by the way his children had
Of saying ‘Father.’
He gave them neither eminence nor wealth,
But he gave them blood untainted with a vice,
And opulence of undiluted health.
He was honest, and unpurchable and kind;
He was clean in heart, and body, and in mind.
So he made them heirs to riches without price –
This father.
He never preached or scolded; and the rod –
Well, he used it as a turning pole in play.
But he showed the tender sympathy of God.
To his children in their troubles, and their joys.
He was always chum and comrade with his boys,
And his daughters – oh, you ought to hear them say
‘Father.’
Now I think of all achievements ‘tis the least
To perpetuate the species; it is done
By the insect and the serpent, and the beast.
But the man who keeps his body, and his thought,
Worth bestowing on an offspring love-begot,
Then the highest earthly glory he was won,
When in pride a grown-up daughter or a son
Says ‘That’s Father.’
Pictures in this article are part of Library of Congress collection.
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