Father's Day is a celebration
honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence
of fathers in society. Many countries celebrate it on the third Sunday of June,
though it is also celebrated widely on other days by many other countries.
Grace Golden Clayton
may have been inspired by Anna Jarvis' work to establish Mother's Day; two
months prior, Jarvis had held a celebration for her dead mother in Grafton,
West Virginia, a town about 15 miles (24 km) away from Fairmont.
After Anna Jarvis'
successful promotion of Mother's Day in Grafton, West Virginia, the first
observance of a "Father's Day" was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont,
West Virginia, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now
known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the
loss of her father when, on December 1907, the Monongah Mining Disaster in
nearby Monongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand
fatherless children. Clayton suggested her pastor Robert Thomas Webb to honor
all those fathers.
Clayton's event did not have repercussions outside of
Fairmont for several reasons, among them: the city was overwhelmed by other
events, the celebration was never promoted outside of the town itself and no
proclamation was made in the city council. Also two events overshadowed this
event: the celebration of Independence Day July 4, 1908, with 12,000 attendants
and several shows including a hot air balloon event, which took over the
headlines in the following days, and the death of a 16-year-old girl on July 4.
The local church and council were overwhelmed and they did not even think of
promoting the event, and it was not celebrated again for many years. The
original sermon was not reproduced in press and it was lost. Finally, Clayton
was a quiet person, who never promoted the event or even talked to ot her persons ab out it.
