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Gerald R. Ford

July 14, 1913 - December 26, 2006
Rancho Mirage, CA

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Life Story / Obituary


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President Gerald R. Ford was a man who devoted his life to serving his country, from the seas of the South Pacific, to the wake of Watergate, to the Oval Office itself. President Ford so often was a healing influence on our nation, in times when we needed it most, leading us through troubled waters by his character, courage and example, an example that is his legacy today.

President Ford's story began on a hot summer day in 1913, in the bustling city of Omaha, Nebraska. Those were exciting times for our country, as President Woodrow Wilson succeeded President Howard Taft, the 16th and 17th Amendments to our Constitution passed, and the Rockefeller Foundation was established. On July 14, 1913, a muggy Monday in Omaha, Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner King celebrated the birth of a baby boy, a son they named Leslie Lynch King, Jr., the boy who would become our nation's 38th President.

Two weeks after his birth, his parents separated, and his mother took him to Grand Rapids, Michigan to live with her parents. On February 1, 1916, nearly two years after her divorce, Dorothy King married Gerald R. Ford, a Grand Rapids paint salesman. The Fords began calling Leslie by the name Gerald R. Ford Jr., although his name wasn't legally changed until December 3, 1935. Ford grew up in a close-knit family in Grand Rapids, complete with his younger half-brothers, Thomas, Richard and James.

Ford attended South High School in Grand Rapids, where he was a standout scholar and athlete. Ford was named to the honor society, as well as the "All-City" and "All-State" teams for his football prowess. He also was very active in the Boy Scouts, and earned the rank of Eagle Scout in November of 1927. A tireless worker even as a young boy, Ford earned spending cash by working at the family's paint business as well as at a local restaurant.

After graduating from South High School, he attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor from 1931-35 on a partial football scholarship. He majored in economics and political science there, and also took several part-time jobs to supplement his scholarship.

Ford was a star lineman for the Wolverines' football team, playing center for national championships teams in '32 and '33. He was named team MVP in 1934, his senior season. After he graduated from Michigan in 1935 with a B.A. degree, he was courted to play professional football by the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, but opted for an assistant coach's position at while studying law at Yale University instead. "If I had gone into professional football, the name Jerry Ford might have been a household name today," Ford once joked.

Ford earned his LL. B. degree from Yale in 1941, and promptly returned to Michigan and passed the bar exam. He and a University of Michigan friend named Philip Buchen set up a law partnership in Grand Rapids, and Ford became very involved in his hometown. He taught a class at the University of Grand Rapids, and joined a group of reform-minded Republicans called the Home Front there.

With the country now embroiled in World War II, Ford left his practice behind, and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. He went to orientation in Annapolis, Maryland, served in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and in the spring of 1943, he was shipped overseas, aboard the USS Monterey. Ford served as athletic director, gunnery division officer, and later assistant navigator on the Monterey, which saw action in nearly every major operation in the South Pacific. He was nearly killed, not by enemy fire, but by a fierce typhoon which came within inches of sweeping him overboard. The storm damaged the Monterey beyond repair, and Ford spent the remainder of the war on dry land. He was discharged as a lieutenant commander in February of 1946.

Ford returned to his hometown, joining the prestigious law firm of Butterfield, Keeney and Amberg as a partner. He was a self-proclaimed compulsive "joiner," and he became well-known in the community. With the backing of several important Grand Rapids Republicans, Ford ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1948 and won with 61 percent of the vote.

Winning a seat in Congress wasn't the best thing that happened to him that year, however. At the height of his campaign, Ford married the former Elizabeth Anne Bloomer Warren, a department store fashion consultant. Together the couple had four children: Michael, in 1950; John, in 1952; Steven, in 1956; and Susan, in 1957.

Ford served in the House of Representatives from January 3, 1949, to December 6, 1973, and was reelected 12 times in his tenure, each time by more than 60 percent of the vote. He also rose to prominence within the Republican Party, serving a number of important posts, including the ranking minority member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in 1961. That same year, he was tapped as Chairman of the House Republican Conference, the number three ranking position in the party. In 1963, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him to the Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of President John Kennedy. He was the last living member of that commission.

In 1965, Ford won the position of minority leader of the House, a post he proudly held for eight years. He deeply wished to someday become Speaker of the House, which due to Democratic control, was a dream which went unfulfilled.

Ford was mentioned as a potential vice presidential running mate to Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972, having been a close friend of Nixon's. When Spiro Agnew resigned as Vice President late in 1973, after pleading no contest to a charge of income tax evasion, President Nixon became the first in history to utilize the 25th Amendment, to appoint a new vice president. That man was Gerald R. Ford. Following the most thorough background investigation in the history of the FBI, Ford was confirmed and sworn in on December 6, 1973.

The Watergate scandal was a black cloud over the Nixon administration, as well as Ford's nine-month tenure as vice president. When it became clear Congress was considering impeachment, Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign from office.

Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office as President of the United States on August 9, 1974, stating that "the long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works."

President Ford's tenure began with several unpopular decisions, as he nominated Nelson Rockefeller for vice president, and even more unpopular, he granted Nixon a full pardon of any criminal charges. While public sentiment feared Ford had made a "deal" with Nixon for the pardon, the 38th President said his motivation was simply to heal a wounded nation. He said that Watergate "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."

President Ford faced many other troubles during his term, including an energy shortage, conflict in Southeast Asia, and rising inflation. He also repeatedly battled an aggressive and bold Democratic Congress, issuing 66 vetoes in his term. President Ford also survived two separate assassination attempts in September of 1975. Yet he is remembered for his leadership during such troubling times, and for ushering the end to the Vietnam War.

President Ford chose Senator Robert Dole as his running mate in the 1976 election, narrowly defeating Ronald Reagan to win the nomination. He then lost to Jimmy Carter in one of the closest presidential elections in history.

After leaving the Oval Office in January of 1977, President Ford retired with his wife to Rancho Mirage, California, where he penned his memoirs, "A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford" in 1979. He has since lectured at 179 colleges on many different governmental topics, and established the AEI World Forum in 1982. In 1981, he dedicated the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, and the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.

He remained a vocal supporter of many different causes, from election reform to affirmative action to cloning, and in 1999 President Bill Clinton awarded him the Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor, and the President and Mrs. Ford were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal the same year for "dedicated public service and outstanding humanitarian contributions." In 2000, the University of Michigan honored him by creating the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

President Gerald R. Ford died Tuesday evening, December 26, 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 93.

President Ford was a man who dedicated his entire life to serving others, in his community, his Congress, and his country, doing whatever he could to deliver it from war, from scandal, and strife. "If I can, I must," the President once said. That is Gerald R. Ford's legacy: He always did what he could, and what he should. Today the world is better because of it.

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