Betty Ford

Betty Ford, White House photo, 1974.

Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren "Betty" Ford (born April 8, 1918) is the wife of former American President Gerald R. Ford and a former First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977.

Early life

Betty Bloomer is the third child and only daughter of Hortense Neahr and William Stephenson Bloomer, an industrial supply salesman. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and has two older brothers, Robert and William, Jr.

She grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan from age three and graduated from Central High School there. She studied dance at the Calla Travis Dance Studio (she graduated from the studio in 1935).

After the 1929 stock market crash, when Betty was eleven, she began modeling clothes and teaching other children dances such as the foxtrot, waltz, and Big Apple. During the Great Depression, the independent First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had a big impact on Betty Bloomer.

When Betty was sixteen, her father died accidentally from carbon monoxide poisoning. In 1936, Betty completed high school and wanted to pursue her study of dance in New York. Her mother refused to let her. Instead, Betty attended the Bennington School of Dance in Bennington, Vermont for two summers, where she studied under Martha Graham. Martha was a tough, demanding teacher who shaped the young Betty Bloomer’s life. Betty asked Martha Graham if she could work with her. To Betty’s delight, Martha agreed.

Model and fashion coordinator, dancer and dance teacher

White House portrait

Betty Bloomer moved to Manhattan’s Chelsea section and worked as a fashion model for the John Robert Powers firm. She modeled hats and dresses to pay for her lessons with Graham. Betty was chosen to be in Martha Graham’s auxiliary troupe and even got to perform at Carnegie Hall.

Betty’s mother Hortense was opposed to her daughter’s choice of a career and insisted that Betty move home, but Betty resisted. They finally came to a compromise. Betty would return home for six months; if, after that time, nothing worked out for her, Betty would return to New York.

Betty consequently moved back to Grand Rapids in 1941, becoming fashion coordinator for Herpolscheimer's department store. She organized her own dance group and taught dance at various sites in Grand Rapids, including to children with disabilities. She also led an active social life.

Marriages and family

Among those she dated was William G. (Bill) Warren, a furniture salesman, whom she had known since she was twelve. Betty’s mother and stepfather (Arthur Godwin) did not approve of the match. They eventually agreed – reluctantly - to Betty and Bill’s marriage, which took place in their home in 1942. They divorced in 1947 on the grounds of incompatibility.

Not long afterward she began dating Gerald Ford, Jr., college football star and graduate of the University of Michigan and Yale Law School, and soon a candidate for Congress. On October 15, 1948 she married Gerald Ford, at Grace Episcopal Church, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was 30, and he 35.

He was then campaigning for what would be his first of fourteen terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Fords moved to the Virginia suburbs of the Washington area and lived there for twenty-five years. Jerry rose to become the highest ranking Republican in the House, then was appointed Vice-President in the wake of the Agnew resignation. The Fords finally relocated again upon the resignation of President Nixon, when Jerry was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States, and he and Betty moved into the White House.

The Fords have three sons and one daughter:

• Michael Gerald Ford (b. 1950) - a minister
• John Gardner “Jack” Ford (b. 1952) - a journalist and public relations consultant
• Steven Meigs Ford (b. 1956) - an actor and rodeo rider
• Susan Elizabeth (Ford) Vance Bales (b. 1957) - a photographer

As of 2005, the Fords have seven grandchildren.

First Lady of the United States

Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as the 38th President of the United States by Chief Justice Warren Burger as Betty Ford looks on.

Gerald Ford became President in 1974 on the resignation of President Richard Nixon, who had named Gerald Ford to the Vice Presidency in 1973.

As First Lady, Betty Ford became quickly known for being willing and eager to speak her mind on a host of issues, both political and otherwise. She was open about the past benefit she had gained from modest psychiatric treatment, she spoke understandingly about marijuana use and premarital sex, and she pointedly stated that she and the President shared the same bed during a televised White House tour. After one especially controversial 60 Minutes interview some conservatives called her "No Lady" and even demanded her "resignation", but her overall approval rating was at 75%. [1]

Betty Ford was also an outspoken advocate of women's rights. She supported the proposed Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortion. For a time, it was unclear whether Gerald Ford shared his wife's pro-choice viewpoint. However, he told interviewer Larry King that he, too, was pro-choice, and had been criticized by conservative forces within the Republican Party.

Shortly after Betty Ford became First Lady she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer. Her open, honest approach about this helped raise the visibility of a disease that Americans had previously been reluctant to talk about. She additionally became a spokeswoman about the importance of early detection of breast cancer.

Betty Ford was an advocate of the arts while First Lady, and was able to help Martha Graham become the first dancer to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Betty Ford Center

In 1978 Betty Ford's family staged an intervention and forced her to confront her own alcoholism and addiction to opioid analgesics and seek treatment. After her recovery, she established in 1982 the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California for the treatment of chemical dependency. Again, her open honesty in dealing with substance abuse and recovery led to an improvement in how Americans talked about such matters. The Betty Ford Center was especially attractive to women and celebrities seeking treatment. She recounted this entire process in her 1987 book Betty: A Glad Awakening.

In 2003 Betty Ford published Healing and Hope: Six Women from the Betty Ford Center Share Their Powerful Journeys of Addiction and Recovery. As of 2005, she remains the active Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Betty Ford Center.

Later life

In 1978, Ford published her autobiography The Times of My Life.

In 1987, Betty Ford was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.

In 1999, President Gerald Ford and Betty Ford were jointly given the Congressional Gold Medal, "in recognition of their dedicated public service and outstanding humanitarian contributions to the people of the United States of America." [2]

References

• Betty Ford Biography
• American President biography

See also

• List of notable breast cancer patients
• List of famous people with breast cancer