This Father’s Day, we’re celebrating Dad by sharing fond childhood memories, words of wisdom that he offered to us, and helpful lessons we picked up. 

“My favourite memories are spending time with him in the yard, like yard work, handing him tools when he was working on machinery,” says Shirley Schroeder. “As a kid, I was on the tractor at a very young age, on the field with him, springtime and fall and stuff. I really enjoyed that.” 

“My favourite memories are going with my father. Every time he would ask me to go on the road with him, I’d get so excited, and I would just love going to places with him,” shares Angele Preteau, recalling her truck driving dad. “Because it was my time with my father, and I think the thing I was really excited about was when he took me into a restaurant.” 

“A couple things that always come to mind, I would always go fishing with my dad, just me and him often,” says Lisa Funk. “And the other thing that I remember doing is always Halloween. We would go trick or treating and quite often play a little bit of tricks on a lot of his friends.” 

“My favorite memory is he always played baseball and I love baseball,” shares Linda Dueck. “Sunday was our Family Day and we played lots of baseball with him. He loved to do that and sometimes he would make us run so far, he would hit the ball so far into the bush area and we'd have to go look for that darn ball.” 

Fathers seem to have a way of passing along some catchy phrases with wisdom inserted in there. 

“My dad always said, ‘No rest for the wicked, sitting here won’t buy baby boots,’” says June. “And I think my dad got that from his dad, because his dad came to this country as a young man, he was a Cossack in the Austrian army, under Franz Joseph. And he came to Gardenton, Manitoba, put in the detention center there until they figured out whether he was of good faith or not to be here in Canada. He struggled very much. He married a young girl from Gardenton and they had 12 children. I think there was a few miscarriages in there, and there was never enough shoes or baby boots for all those babies.” 

When Sherri’s dad felt she was too young to get the answers to her questions, he would tell her, “Put that in your little black book and ask me when you’re 18.” 

Karli’s dad offered her this wisdom as she was growing up, “Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty. And, when you’re merging, always pin in.” 

How did Father’s Day begin? - generalblue.com

Most people believe that Father’s Day celebration originated in the United States. There are two different stories of how this occasion began. Many believed it was Sonora Smart Dodd who’s the real founder of Father’s Day. Her idea of celebrating Father’s Day came to life when she attended a mass with a church sermon about Mother’s Day. She thought fathers aren’t recognized the same way mothers are honored on Mother’s Day. Her father was widowed, yet he raised her and her siblings well. If mothers are honored during Mother’s Day, she felt that honoring fatherhood is needed as well, so she raised that to her pastor. On June 19, 1910, the first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane Washington.

On the other hand, other people believe that honoring fatherhood had already happened prior to that. Some people believe that it was on July 5, 1908 – when Grace Golden Clayton organized the first public Father’s Day celebration in Fairmont, West Virginia. She came up with an idea to honor fathers when a mine explosion killed over 300 men, most of them are fathers. However, regardless of who the real founder is, the United States’ celebration of Father’s Day became widespread. Many countries around the world embraced the idea of Father’s Day celebration and one of which is Canada.

-With files from Carly Koop and Kenton Dyck

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