Three generations of dads celebrate Father’s Day and each other

 Ninety-five-year-old Fred Gehl has been a father almost as long as the concept of Father’s Day has been around.

The retired chiropractor’s son, Jay Gehl, 63, and grandson, Bruce Gehl, 43, make a point of celebrating Father’s Day each year to show their love and appreciation for one another.
  

“I think it’s out of respect and to honor your parents,” Jay Gehl, of Jamestown, said Thursday morning during a visit with his father, a resident of Tuolumne General Medical Facility Long Term Care.

The idea of Father’s Day was conceived in 1909. Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, of Spokane, Wash., was 27 when she listened to a Sunday sermon about Mother’s Day and wondered why there was no corresponding day for fathers.

Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, a widowed Civil War veteran who raised his six children on a farm. In 1910, the mayor of Spokane chose June 19 as the first Father’s Day celebration because it was in the month of Dodd’s father’s birth.

Since 1966 it has been celebrated on the third Sunday in June. Father’s Day became an official U.S. celebration in 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed a law that made it permanent.

Fred Gehl was born in Ferdinand, Ind., one of 13 children. His father was a “lumberman” and owned a sawmill that was powered by horses.

Fred remembers spending Father’s Day with his father riding horses, a family hobby that’s passed down to Bruce and the other Gehl children.

Fred attended college in Jasper, Ind., and graduated from chiropractic college in Davenport, Ind., in 1931.

Fred and his wife, Dorothy, had six children, five of whom, including Jay, became chiropractors.

The Gehls took to the profession because they were interested in “helping people with alternative health care,” said Jay, who has practiced in Sonora since 1980 and recently retired.

Jay was the first to move to California after he completed chiropractic college. He said he had “a desire to be in a better climate.”

Now, Jay and his sister, Marsha Gehl, live in Sonora. Fred lived with them for four years before moving into long term care in January.

“He’s still spry for 95,” Marsha said. “It was a hard decision for us.”

Jay said Fred taught him and his siblings “the values of hard work and honesty.”

Bruce, Jay and Fred get together often and consider their family a close one.

“My dad would take me fishing, camping, horseback riding,” Bruce said of Father’s Days growing up.  

“We always had a traditional barbecue,” Jay said. “Usually the whole family would get together.”

The men share a love of the outdoors, especially horseback riding. Bruce and Jay also participated in the Boy Scouts in their youths.

Among other common interests, Fred and Jay enjoy gardening and Jay said his father had him out in the garden when he was a small boy.    

When asked what they admire about their fathers, both Jay and Bruce said honesty, integrity, intelligence and friendship.

“He’s always been there for me,” Bruce said.