Some dads are more noteworthy than others.

William J. Smart was 20 years old when he enlisted with the First Arkansas Light Artillery and fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge.  After the war, he married Elizabeth Harris, who bore him 3 children before she died in 1878.  Two years later, he remarried, to Ellen Victoria Clark Billingsley.  Soon after, they moved to Spokane, in the Washington Territory.  William and Ellen had 6 more children, before she died in childbirth in 1896.  After which William raised his 9 children all on his own.

By all accounts he did one hell of a job.  In 1910, his daughter Sonora heard a sermon about the newly-created Mother’s Day holiday.  After the service, she went down to the Spokane Ministerial Alliance and pointed out that folks like her dad deserved a day of their own.  She suggested a holiday to honor dads be held on June 5 (William’s birthday) and the Alliance agreed, though they chose the third Sunday in June as the date.

The idea quickly spread across the nation.  In 1916, William was 74 years old, sitting in his pew at church, minding his own business.  When suddenly the President of the United States walked in.  Woodrow Wilson had come to pay his respects to the man who had inspired Father’s Day.  And that made the holiday semi-official.

Three years later, William died, with all 9 of his children at his side.  Sonora kept his memory alive by advocating for an official national holiday.  It would take her almost fifty years, until Lyndon Johnson issued a presidential proclamation in support of Father’s Day in 1966.  Richard Nixon finally signed it into law in 1972.

Sonora was an honoree at the Spokane World’s Fair in 1974.  She died four years later, at the age of 96.

She was buried in Greenwood Memorial Terrace in Spokane.  Right next to her dad.