Believe it or not, Father’s Day dates to the early 1900s where, in Catholic Europe, it was customary to honor Saint Joseph, believed to be the father of Jesus Christ.

In the United States, it is believed that the day to honor father’s is related to the tragic West Virginia Monongah Mining incident of 1907, where 365 men lost their lives, leaving nearly 1,000 children fatherless. Grace Golden Clayton, mourning her own father’s death, proposed a day to memorialize the fathers lost in the mining disaster. A few years later, Sonora Dodd organized a day to celebrate dads after being inspired by a Mother’s Day church sermon. She and her five brothers were raised by a single father, whose essential role in their lives she wanted to see honored.

President Lyndon Johnson made Fathers’ Day official, in 1966, with Proclamation 3730. The holiday became permanent when President Richard M. Nixon signed Proclamation 4127 establishing “each year one special Sunday in honor of America’s fathers; and from this year forward, by a joint resolution of the Congress approved April 24, 1972, that custom carries the weight of law.” Nixon wrote, “To have a father—to be a father—is to come very near the heart of life itself.” Likely he was thinking of his own father, Francis A. Nixon, born in Vinton County, Ohio. In 1908, Francis married Hannah Milhous and the couple relocated to California where Francis, Frank, worked odd jobs until he opened a grocery store in Whittier, California. There, the couple raised their son, Richard, who would become the 37th president of the United States.

Another famous Frank, the crooner Frank Sinatra, was the son of Anthony, who was born in 1894 in a small Sicilian mining town. At age nine, Antonio emigrated with his family to New York and grew to be a “powerfully built man.” While working as a shoemaker, he became a prize fighter known as Marty O’Brien, taking the Irish moniker because Italians, at the time, were considered inferior athletes. After breaking his wrist and leaving his boxing career behind, Antonio eloped with Natalie Garaventa.  The couple moved to Hoboken, where he eventually became captain of the Hoboken Fire Department, and where their only son Frank was born in 1915. The couple also owned a tavern where young Frank would do his homework and sing at the player piano for change.

Frank Sinatra passed away in 1988 at age 82, the same year that, in Tampa, Florida, John and Margaret Stafford gave birth to their son, John “Matthew,” who would, in 2009, become the beloved quarterback of the Detroit Lions. An athlete himself, John swam at Florida State University and, while attending graduate school at the University of Georgia, served as assistant swim coach. By the time their son was born, John had left coaching to enter private business in Tampa then relocated to Dallas. There, Matthew attended Highland Park High School and became the school’s star quarterback in his freshman year. Matthew later attended his father’s alma matter, the University of Georgia, where  he played for the Georgia Bulldogs. In an interview for Swimming World Magazine, John reflected, “I think one thing I passed on to Matthew is the importance of work ethic, the ability to every day apply your best effort, not go get ahead of the day by focusing on game day, etc.”

On behalf of the SOAR team, we wish you all a Happy Father’s Day and share this bit of wisdom from author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.”