Father's Day Celebration!

In Honor of Father's Day, the Waxahachie Journal has reserved this space for articles, photographs and stories about dads. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Father's Day, contrary to popular misconception, was not established as a holiday in order to help greeting card manufacturers sell more cards.In fact when a "father's day" was first proposed there were no Father's Day cards!

Sonora Dodd, of Washington, first had the idea of a "father's day." She thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.  Sonora wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. Smart, who was a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.

After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910. President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Then in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972.

 

My father told me once that during World War II he often felt ashamed to be safe at home while so many men his age were off fighting in the war. I didn’t really know the reason he had not gone to war. He told me he had tried to join but was told his job was too important for him to leave. He worked with a crew of men who repaired rail lines in various parts of the United States.

Later, as the war dragged on and casualties mounted, my father received a draft notice and went in for his physical. He had injured his back since the last time he tried to join, and he could not pass the physical. Once again, for a different reason, he was turned down. It was an event that haunted him all his life. On those rare occasions when he spoke of his disappointment and shame, I reminded him he had tried twice to fight in the war effort. “Yes,” he said, “but I still feel like I let my country down.”

This man who left home at nineteen and worked so hard all his life still felt a tinge of regret. He had grown up on a hardscrabble farm in Kentucky. Life was difficult and he wanted to make a better life for himself. One day, he simply walked away. He did not tell anyone he was leaving. “It was time,” he said. He hitched his way north until he came to a large train yard. He started asking about work and was told there were jobs available at a certain place if he would immediately go and get in line. He did and was hired. He left that day on a train that was going north.

When the work crew stopped in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, he met my mother. He was in town for only a month and dated my mother for just a couple of weeks but knew when the train left that he wanted to take her with him. He grinned and said, “I told her she’d better come with me because I wasn’t coming back through here again.” They were married a few days later and left the next day.

They enjoyed married life aboard the train, until my mother became pregnant with my older brother. Neither one of them wanted to raise a baby on a train, so my father began looking for a job where they could stay put. Hearing about jobs in Texas, they made their way to Sulphur Springs. Unfortunately, the rumor about jobs was just that – a rumor. There were no jobs to be had. Over the next year Dad had several jobs and he and Mom moved several times until they ended up in Fort Worth, Texas. Dad went to work for Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Company, now Lockheed Aircraft.

“I thought this was a good job but the plant closed after the war ended,” Dad said. He was only off work a month when the plant was reopened and he was called back. My Dad had only an 8th grade education, but through the years he was able to hold his own with engineers and college-educated men in the company as he built many complicated aircraft parts for the United States military. He was called upon several times to travel to other plants to work out problems with parts. He received many awards for suggestions that saved time and money for the aircraft plant. After 40 years at the plant he retired.

He felt very proud of the work he had done all those years. My Mom put together a scrapbook of his time at the plant and he loved to show it to anyone he could. He also had a windbreaker on which my Mom had sewn several patches he was given when he would go to various aircraft plants around the country. He wore it proudly almost every day until his death in April, 2002.

My older brother recently found a web site on the Internet that is devoted to honoring patriots of the United States. These include men and women who have served in the military in various World War II military conflicts as well as civilians who have served their country. It is befitting that my Dad, who felt so ashamed of not having been in the military, is immortalized there now for serving his country here at home. I know he would be very proud. www.wwiimemorial.com 

"Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!"
-- Lydia M. Child
 

"It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was."  -- Anne Sexton

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~Clarence Budington Kelland

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.  Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass."  "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply.  "We're raising boys."  ~Harmon Killebrew

Dad, you're someone to look up to no matter how tall I've grown.  ~Author Unknown

A Loving Salute
By Kathryn E. Eriksen

“It is not what happens to you that determines how far you will go in life. It is how you handle what happens to you.” Jim Rohn

My father is 90 years old, and has seen and experienced most of the historical events of the last century. From being born at the end of World War I, growing up in the Depression, serving in World War II and creating a successful legal career, he has had many opportunities to turn the hard lessons of life into strong and enduring character attributes.

He was born in 1917 – a time of transition and change. World War I was over and the country was getting back to work. But even greater changes occurred in his family that had a profound effect on his life.

While he was still an infant, his father became a victim of the great influenza epidemic that swept the country. His mother had to rely on relatives to help her support her family of three boys. They moved several times over the years. At one point, my dad and his older brother went to live in Ballinger, Texas with their Uncle Will and his wife.

Uncle Will was a cotton farmer, a difficult occupation in the best of times. My dad and his brother were put to work in the cotton fields, stooping, bending and picking cotton balls all day in the hot, West Texas sun. Now he can laugh about it and say, “You’ve never worked hard until you’ve picked a sack full of cotton!” Hard work, determination and perseverance became the first touchstones of his life at an early age.

He remembers Uncle Will as a stern but loving man. Uncle Will was not expressive or affectionate, but you could tell that he loved you. Sometimes, you just had to look hard for it.

When my dad was about 7 years old, Uncle Will bought new shoes for the boys. It was a rare treat to receive new shoes and they wanted to celebrate. Both kids took off and ran to the creek to go swimming. Being 7 years old, my dad forgot to take off his new boots. When they got back to the house, dripping and laughing, Uncle Will was standing on the front porch looking like he would bring down the wrath of God on their heads. A quick trip to the tool shed and no supper that night burned the lesson into my dad’s heart – you always take care of what is yours. Responsibility became another touchstone for the rest of his life.

Fast forward to the end of the Depression. Somehow, my dad found the money to attend the University of Texas Law School. But he had to work two jobs to put food on the table, while keeping up with his legal studies. One semester, though, hard work was not enough to buy the books he needed. A classmate recognized that his friend needed help, and told his father, who made sure that my dad had his textbooks. When my dad discovered who helped him, he immediately went to that man’s office to thank him in person. Even now, he will shake his head in amazement and say, “You don’t forget something like that.” Gratitude and thankfulness still define his life today.

World War II interrupted his law school studies. He became a member of the CIC, the predecessor to the CIA. Although he never talks about what type of work he did for the government, he achieved a status that gave him more gas and food rations than the common soldier. He injured his back while on a covert mission, and he was sent to the hospital at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. During his convalescence, a beautiful, red-haired nurse caught his eye. They took advantage of his extra gas rations, and spent their free time driving “and sparking” in the Texas Hill Country. Love, loyalty and friendship became strong hallmarks in his relationship with “Red.”

A wedding was held and they moved to Dallas. He set up his law practice and they began to raise their family. All of the lessons that molded his life were taught to their four children. The strength of responsibility, love and loyalty to family and gratitude to a loving God were the touchstones of my life growing up. Character and integrity counterbalanced the turmoil of becoming an adolescent in the disco years. And a deep, supporting love was the undercurrent that helped guide me as I set out to discover my own life.

My Dad grew up without a father. He grew up in the Depression, had to work in the cotton fields as a child, and knew the pangs of hunger. But he turned those negative events into strengths. He became everything a child could ever want in a father. The profound lessons he taught me about life are now my inner guideposts. My life, family and career are testaments to a job well done – by my Dad.

I stand tall and salute my Dad, as I declare to the world, “I have the best Dad a girl could ever have!”