The "mother" of Father's Day was Sonora Smart Dodd, according to many historians.  The daughter of a widowed Civil Was veteran who had raised her on his own.  Dodd came up with the idea when listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.  She held her own special tribute for her father on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington, and began a campaign for an official celebration thereafter.

Initially the idea of Father's Day was met with skepticism.  But in 1919, President Calvin Coolidge expressed support for the holiday, and in 1926 a National Father's Day Committee was formed in New York City to join the campaign.  In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day, but it wasn't until 1972 that President Richard Nixon officially recognized it as a national holiday.

The official flower of Father's Day is the rose: red for fathers who are still living, and white for fathers who have passed away.

except from June 2009 newsletter.