Enjoy Father's Day? Thank the woman who spent 62 years campaigning for it.

On the third Sunday in June, Americans take time to honor fathers and their role in the family and community.

Few Americans are aware of the woman who launched a 62-year campaign to establish the day as a federal holiday.

• At age 16, Sonora Louise Smart Dodd lost her mother, and her father was left to raise Dodd and her five younger brothers alone.
• In 1909, Dodd was listening to a Mother's Day sermon and realized the need for a day to celebrate fathers. She drew up a petition for the first Father's Day.
• She gained only two signatures, but in the process convinced several local church communities to participate.
• The celebration started Dodd's nearly life-long mission of promoting Father's Day for national status.
• Dodd traveled the United States over the next half-century, campaigning for the cause.
• Father's Day was finally recognized in 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed the resolution into law.*