21 June 1938-12 December 2011

Words by his son Curtis D. Tucker
Two families lost someone yesterday. One family lost a long time dad, husband, uncle and brother that had aged into his 70′s, while another family lost a faint memory of someone frozen in time, a 30 year old man captured only in a few vintage photographs and videos, smiling and unaging. With the remote chance of ever crossing paths now forever closed, may you rest in peace Tilford Neal Tucker. Condolences go out to his wife Monica, his daughters Jodi and Jeni and the entire Tucker family.

Hug your crumb crunchers today as I will surely hug mine, be sure they know you love them and take care of any unfinished business before it’s too late.

The first observance of Father’s Day is believed to have been held on June 19, 1910 through the efforts of Sonora Smart Dodd  of Spokane, Washington.  After listening to a church sermon at Spokane’s Central Methodist Episcopal Church in 1909 about the newly recognized Mother’s Day, Dodd felt strongly that fatherhood needed recognition, as well. She wanted a celebration that honored fathers like her own father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was left to raise his family alone when his wife died giving birth to their sixth child when Sonora was 16 years old. A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913.   In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson  issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day.  Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.  Thus taking only 62 years to get it made into a national holiday.