Marietta Fairbanks1

b. 20 May 1815
     Marietta Fairbanks was born on 20 May 1815.1 She married Joseph B. Hunt, son of Alpheus M. Hunt and Eliza A. Barnard, on 3 October 1832.1

Children of Marietta Fairbanks and Joseph B. Hunt

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1177.

Eliza Jeanette Hunt

b. 10 July 1833
     Eliza Jeanette Hunt was born on 10 July 1833 at DeRuyter, Madison Co., NY. She was the daughter of Joseph B. Hunt and Marietta Fairbanks.

Eunice Matilda Hunt1

b. 5 September 1835
     Eunice Matilda Hunt was born on 5 September 1835 at DeRuyter, Madison Co., NY.1 She was the daughter of Joseph B. Hunt and Marietta Fairbanks.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1177.

Abigail Ann Hunt1

b. 24 May 1840, d. 16 December 1841
     Abigail Ann Hunt was born on 24 May 1840 at Truxton, Cortland Co., NY.1 She was the daughter of Joseph B. Hunt and Marietta Fairbanks.1 Abigail Ann Hunt died on 16 December 1841 at age 1.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1177.

Mary Letitia Hunt1

b. 1 October 1842
     Mary Letitia Hunt was born on 1 October 1842 at Truxton, Cortland Co., NY.1 She was the daughter of Joseph B. Hunt and Marietta Fairbanks.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1177.

John Asahel Hunt1

b. 23 April 1845
     John Asahel Hunt was born on 23 April 1845 at DeRuyter, Madison Co., NY.1 He was the son of Joseph B. Hunt and Marietta Fairbanks.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1177.

Joseph Franklin Hunt1

b. 19 November 1848
     Joseph Franklin Hunt was born on 19 November 1848 at Hartland, Waukesha Co., WI.1 He was the son of Joseph B. Hunt and Marietta Fairbanks.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1177.

Enos Monroe Hunt1

b. 27 February 1851
     Enos Monroe Hunt was born on 27 February 1851 at Hartland, Waukesha Co., WI.1 He was the son of Joseph B. Hunt and Marietta Fairbanks.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1177.

Mary Hall Sisson Gardner1

b. 7 May 1793, d. 23 September 1845
     Mary Hall Sisson Gardner was born on 7 May 1793 at Nantucket, MA.1 She married Lewis Hunt, son of Asahel Hunt and Anna Geer, on 18 August 1830 at Cincinnati, Hamilton Co., OH.1 Mary Hall Sisson Gardner died on 23 September 1845 at age 52.1

Children of Mary Hall Sisson Gardner and Lewis Hunt

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Volume II, Page 1178.

Susan Leavins

b. 10 October 1797
     Susan Leavins was born on 10 October 1797 at Granville, NY. She married Lewis Hunt, son of Asahel Hunt and Anna Geer, on 8 August 1847 at NY.

George Asahel Hunt

b. 3 September 1831, d. 13 July 1838
     George Asahel Hunt was born on 3 September 1831.1 He was the son of Lewis Hunt and Mary Hall Sisson Gardner. George Asahel Hunt died on 13 July 1838 at drowned, Cincinnati, Hamilton Co, OH, at age 6.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Vol. II, Page 1178.

Helen Mary Hunt

b. 6 August 1834, d. 14 April 1837
     Helen Mary Hunt was born on 6 August 1834.1 She was the daughter of Lewis Hunt and Mary Hall Sisson Gardner. Helen Mary Hunt died on 14 April 1837 at Cincinnati, Hamilton Co., OH, at age 2.1

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Vol. II, Page 1178.

Anna F. Hunt

b. 14 November 1835, d. 11 April 1837
     Anna F. Hunt was born on 14 November 1835. She was the daughter of Lewis Hunt and Mary Hall Sisson Gardner. Anna F. Hunt died on 11 April 1837 at age 1.

Mary Hunt

b. 18 February 1839
     Mary Hunt was born on 18 February 1839.1 She was the daughter of Lewis Hunt and Mary Hall Sisson Gardner.

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Vol. II, Page 1178.

Josiah Lyman Arms

b. 25 May 1787, d. 12 December 1828
     Josiah Lyman Arms was born on 25 May 1787.1 He was the son of Jonathan Arms and Eunice Lyman. Josiah Lyman Arms married Cynthia Geer Hunt, daughter of Asahel Hunt and Anna Geer, on 15 October 1812.2 Josiah Lyman Arms died on 12 December 1828 at Glens Falls, Warren Co., NY, at age 41.1

Josiah owned flour and lumber mills at Glenn's Fals, NY. Cynthia was still residing there (1870), a widow for 41 years.

Children of Josiah Lyman Arms and Cynthia Geer Hunt

Citations

  1. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, vol. II, page 1178.
  2. [S84] Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight Elder John Strong, Vol. II, Page 1178.

Michael Spencer1

b. 1611, d. 1653
     Michael Spencer was born in 1611 at Stotfold, County Bedfordshire, England.1 He was the son of Gerard Spencer and Alice Whitbread.1 Michael Spencer died in 1653.1

Citations

  1. [S277] Jack Spencer, "Sgt. Thomas Spencer."

Ann Derifall1

b. 1610, d. 1644
     Ann Derifall was also known as Ann Darifield. She was born in 1610.1 She married Sergeant Thomas Spencer, son of Gerard Spencer and Alice Whitbread, circa 1638.1 Ann Derifall died in 1644.2

Child of Ann Derifall and Sergeant Thomas Spencer

Citations

  1. [S277] Jack Spencer, "Sgt. Thomas Spencer."
  2. [S289] Donald Barber, "John Spencer," e-mail to James H. Holcombe, December 10, 2000.

Elizabeth Spencer

b. 1602
     Elizabeth Spencer was born in 1602. She was the daughter of Gerard Spencer and Alice Whitbread.

Thomas Gridley1

b. 1612, d. 1655
     Thomas Gridley was born in 1612. He died in 1655.

Children of Thomas Gridley and Mary Seymour

Citations

  1. [S278] Thomas Boslooper, "Thomas Gridley."

Adele Augusta Ayer1

b. 22 October 1867, d. 10 August 1938
     Adele Augusta Ayer was born on 22 October 1867 at Youngstown, OH.1 She was the daughter of George Manney Ayer and Amy Gridley Butler.1 Adele Augusta Ayer married Levi Addison Gardner on 21 October 1884 at Harvard, McHenry Co., IL.1 Adele Augusta Ayer died on 10 August 1938 at Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., CA, at age 70.1

Levi and Addle were enumerated in the 1900 Harvard, McHenry Co., IL, federal census. He was in commercial sales age 37, she was 32. Children in the household were (?) 13, and Dorothy 8. Father-in-law George Ayer age 60 was also in the household.


Adele and Dorothy were enumerated in the 1910 Evanston, Cook Co., IL, federal census boarding in the Greenwood Inn. Adele was 42, Dorothy 18.

Child of Adele Augusta Ayer and Levi Addison Gardner

Citations

  1. [S95] Gary Boyd Roberts, Presidents 1995 Edition, Page 107.

Levi Addison Gardner1

b. 24 April 1861, d. 9 May 1916
     Levi Addison Gardner was born on 24 April 1861 at Solon Mills, IL.1 He married Adele Augusta Ayer, daughter of George Manney Ayer and Amy Gridley Butler, on 21 October 1884 at Harvard, McHenry Co., IL.1 Levi Addison Gardner died on 9 May 1916 at Grand Rapids, MI, at age 55.2 He was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Harvard, McHenry Co., IL.3

Child of Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer

Citations

  1. [S95] Gary Boyd Roberts, Presidents 1995 Edition, Page 107.
  2. [S676] Gary Boyd Roberts, Presidents 2009 Edition, page 156, item 6.
  3. [S888] Find A Grave Memorial; memorial page for Levi Addison Gardner (23 Apr 1860–9 May 1916). Memorial no. 113764727, database and images: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/113764727, accessed 4 July 2020, citing Mount Auburn Cemetery, Harvard, McHenry County, Illinois, USA; Maintained by: kb1096 (contributor 47143925).

Dorothy Ayer Gardner1

b. 27 February 1892, d. 17 September 1967
Dorothy Ayer Gardner
1910
     Dorothy Ayer Gardner was born on 27 February 1892 at Harvard, McHenry Co., IL.1 She was the daughter of Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer.1 Dorothy Ayer Gardner married Leslie Lynch King on 7 September 1912 at Harvard, McHenry Co., IL.1 Dorothy Ayer Gardner and Leslie Lynch King were divorced on 19 December 1913 at Omaha, Douglas Co., NE. Dorothy Ayer Gardner married Gerald Rudolf Ford in 1916. Dorothy Ayer Gardner died on 17 September 1967 at Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI, at age 75.1

Child of Dorothy Ayer Gardner and Leslie Lynch King

Citations

  1. [S95] Gary Boyd Roberts, Presidents 1995 Edition, Page 107.

Leslie Lynch King1

b. 25 July 1882, d. 18 February 1941
     Leslie Lynch King was born on 25 July 1882 at Chadron, NE.1 He married Dorothy Ayer Gardner, daughter of Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer, on 7 September 1912 at Harvard, McHenry Co., IL.1 Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner were divorced on 19 December 1913 at Omaha, Douglas Co., NE. Leslie Lynch King died on 18 February 1941 at Tucson, Pima Co, AZ, at age 58.1

Child of Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner

Citations

  1. [S95] Gary Boyd Roberts, Presidents 1995 Edition, Page 107.

Gerald Rudolf Ford

b. circa 1890
     Gerald Rudolf Ford was born circa 1890 at MI.1 He married Dorothy Ayer Gardner, daughter of Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer, in 1916.

Gerald R. and Dorothy G. were enumerated in the 1920 Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI, federal census, ED 73. He was a store manager age 30, she was. Children in the household were Gerald Jr. 6, and Tom.


Gerald R. and Dorothy were enumerated in the 1930 Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI, federal census, ED 70. He was 39, she was 38. Children in the household were Gerald R. Jr. 16, Tom 11, Richard R. 5, and James 2.

Citations

  1. [S388] 1930 Federal Census.

Leslie Lynch King Jr.1

b. 14 July 1913, d. 26 December 2006
President Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.
1913 - 2006
     Leslie Lynch King Jr. was born on 14 July 1913 at Omaha, Douglas Co., NE.1 He was the son of Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner.1 As of 3 December 1935, Leslie Lynch King Jr. was also known as President Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. He married Elizabeth Ann Bloomer on 15 October 1948 at Grace Episcopal Church, Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI. Leslie Lynch King Jr. died on 26 December 2006 at Rancho Mirage, CA, at age 93. He was buried on 3 January 2007 at Gerald Ford Presidential Museum, Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI.

from the whitehouse.gov web page:


When Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office on August 9, 1974, he declared, "I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances.... This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts."

It was indeed an unprecedented time. He had been the first Vice President chosen under the terms of the Twenty-fifth Amendment and, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, was succeeding the first President ever to resign.

Ford was confronted with almost insuperable tasks. There were the challenges of mastering inflation, reviving a depressed economy, solving chronic energy shortages, and trying to ensure world peace.

The President acted to curb the trend toward Government intervention and spending as a means of solving the problems of American society and the economy. In the long run, he believed, this shift would bring a better life for all Americans.

Ford's reputation for integrity and openness had made him popular during his 25 years in Congress. From 1965 to 1973, he was House Minority Leader. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1913, he grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He starred on the University of Michigan football team, then went to Yale, where he served as assistant coach while earning his law degree. During World War II he attained the rank of lieutenant commander in the Navy. After the war he returned to Grand Rapids, where he began the practice of law, and entered Republican politics. A few weeks before his election to Congress in 1948, he married Elizabeth Bloomer. They have four children: Michael, John, Steven, and Susan.

As President, Ford tried to calm earlier controversies by granting former President Nixon a full pardon. His nominee for Vice President, former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, was the second person to fill that office by appointment. Gradually, Ford selected a cabinet of his own.

Ford established his policies during his first year in office, despite opposition from a heavily Democratic Congress. His first goal was to curb inflation. Then, when recession became the Nation's most serious domestic problem, he shifted to measures aimed at stimulating the economy. But, still fearing inflation, Ford vetoed a number of non-military appropriations bills that would have further increased the already heavy budgetary deficit. During his first 14 months as President he vetoed 39 measures. His vetoes were usually sustained.

Ford continued as he had in his Congressional days to view himself as "a moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs." A major goal was to help business operate more freely by reducing taxes upon it and easing the controls exercised by regulatory agencies. "We...declared our independence 200 years ago, and we are not about to lose it now to paper shufflers and computers," he said.

In foreign affairs Ford acted vigorously to maintain U. S. power and prestige after the collapse of Cambodia and South Viet Nam. Preventing a new war in the Middle East remained a major objective; by providing aid to both Israel and Egypt, the Ford Administration helped persuade the two countries to accept an interim truce agreement. Detente with the Soviet Union continued. President Ford and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev set new limitations upon nuclear weapons.

President Ford won the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 1976, but lost the election to his Democratic opponent, former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia.

On Inauguration Day, President Carter began his speech: "For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land." A grateful people concurred.

He died at home in Rancho Mirage, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles. He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93.

Citations

  1. [S95] Gary Boyd Roberts, Presidents 1995 Edition, Page 107.

Elizabeth Ann Bloomer

b. 8 April 1918, d. 8 July 2011
First Lady Betty (Bloomer) Ford
     Elizabeth Ann Bloomer was born on 8 April 1918 at Chicago, Cook Co., IL. She married William C. Warren in 1942. Elizabeth Ann Bloomer and William C. Warren were divorced on 22 September 1947. Elizabeth Ann Bloomer married Leslie Lynch King Jr., son of Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner, on 15 October 1948 at Grace Episcopal Church, Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI. Elizabeth Ann Bloomer died on 8 July 2011 at Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, CA, at age 93.

from the Los Angeles Times, 9 July 2010, by Marlene Cimons, and other sources:

As wife of Gerald R. Ford, the 38th president of the United States and the only person to hold that office without first being elected vice president or president, Betty spent a brief, yet remarkable time as the nation's first lady. But after he left office and even after his death in 2006 at 93, she had considerable influence as founder of the widely emulated Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage for the treatment of chemical dependencies.

After the 1929 stock market crash, when Ford was 14, she began modeling clothes and teaching children dances such as the foxtrot, waltz, and big apple. She also entertained and worked with children with disabilities at the Mary Free Bed Home for Crippled Children. She studied dance at the Calla Travis Dance Studio, graduating in 1935.

When Ford was 16, her father died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the Bloomers' garage while working under their car, despite the garage doors being open. In 1936, after she graduated from high school, she proposed continuing her study of dance in New York City, but her mother refused. Instead, Ford attended the Bennington School of Dance in Bennington, Vermont, for two summers, where she studied under Martha Graham and Hanya Holm.

After being accepted by Graham as a student, Ford moved to Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and worked as a fashion model for the John Robert Powers firm in order to finance her dance studies. She joined Graham’s auxiliary troupe and eventually performed with the company at Carnegie Hall.

Her mother opposed her daughter’s choice of a career and insisted that she move home, but Ford resisted. They finally came to a compromise: she would return home for six months, and if she still wanted to return to New York at the end of the six months, her mother would not protest further. Betty became immersed in her life in Grand Rapids and did not return to New York. Her mother now married family friend and neighbor, Arthur Meigs Goodwin, and Betty lived with them. She got a job as assistant to the fashion coordinator for a local department store, Herpolsheimer's. She also organized her own dance group and taught dance at various sites in Grand Rapids.

In 1942, she married William C. Warren, who worked for his father in insurance sales, and whom she had known since she was 12. Warren began selling insurance for another company shortly after, later he worked for Continental Can Co., and after that Widdicomb Furniture, and the couple moved frequently because of his work. At one point, they lived in Toledo, Ohio, where she was employed at the department store Lasalle & Koch as a demonstrator, a job that entailed being a model and saleswoman. She worked a production line for a frozen food company in Syracuse, New York, and once back in Grand Rapids returned to work at Herpolsheimer's, this time as "The" Fashion Coordinator. Warren, an alcoholic, was in poor health and just after Betty had decided to file for divorce he went into a coma and she took care of him for another two years as he convalesced; they finally divorced on September 22, 1947, on the grounds of "excessive, repeated cruelty". They had no children.

After Gerald’s election, the Fords moved to the Virginia suburbs of the Washington, D.C., area and lived there for 25 years. Gerald rose to become the highest-ranking Republican in the House, then was appointed Vice President to Richard Nixon when Spiro Agnew resigned from that position in 1973. He became president in 1974, upon Nixon's resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Betty and Gerald Ford were among the more openly loving and intimate First Couples in American history. Neither was shy about their mutual love and equal respect, and they were known to have a strong personal and political partnership.


Ford was an accidental first lady who had looked forward to her husband's retirement from political life until Richard Nixon chose him to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew, who had resigned amid allegations of corruption. When turmoil engulfed Nixon during the Watergate scandal, she told anyone who asked that she did not want to be first lady, but the job became hers when the president resigned on Aug. 9, 1974.

The groundbreaking role she would play as first lady may have been foreshadowed in President Ford's inaugural address.

"I am indebted to no man and only to one woman — my dear wife, Betty," he told the nation. Over the next 800 days of his tenure, she would outshine him in the polls, and when he ran for election in 1976, one of the most popular campaign buttons read "Betty's Husband for President."

Her taboo-busting honesty — about abortion, sex, gay rights, marijuana and the Equal Rights Amendment — was a bracing antidote to the secrecy and deceptions of the Watergate era. Although her opinions may have cost him some votes, historians and other observers would argue later that Gerald Ford could not have ended "our long national nightmare" without Betty leading the way.

"I was terrified at first," she once said about her sudden elevation to first lady. "I had worked before. I had raised a family — and I was ready to get back to work again. Then, just at that time, this thing happened. And I didn't have the vaguest idea what being a first lady was and what was demanded of me."

The solution? "I just decided to be myself," she said.

Ford caught the attention of a scandal-weary America with her opinions on her children's dating habits and their possible marijuana use, and on her and her husband's decision not to follow the White House tradition of separate bedrooms.

She enthusiastically campaigned for feminist causes that she believed in — the Equal Rights Amendment, for example, and the nomination of a woman to the Supreme Court. Her vigorous support of the women's movement inspired leading feminist Gloria Steinem to remark that she "felt better knowing that Betty Ford was sleeping with the president."

Two months after Ford moved into the White House, a malignancy was discovered in her right breast. She underwent a radical mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy.

At that time, breast cancer was a taboo subject, so it was remarkable news that she not only disclosed the illness but openly talked about it and her treatment. "It's hard for anyone born perhaps after 1980 or even in 1970 to understand that these things were not talked about," Dr. Patricia Ganz, director of cancer prevention and control research at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, told The Times in 2006.

"They were very stigmatizing. A woman didn't dare mention to her friends, employer, extended family that she had breast cancer," Ganz said. Ford's belief that if it could happen to her, "it could happen to anyone," heightened public awareness of the disease. The American Cancer Society reported a 400% increase in requests about breast cancer screenings, and tens of thousands of women sought mammograms. Among those helped by her frank attitude was Happy Rockefeller, the wife of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who discovered she had breast cancer and subsequently underwent a mastectomy.

The public outpouring led Ford to realize that when she spoke, people listened. For the rest of her White House days, she would use her position as a bully pulpit to advance the causes and issues she believed in.

She "made the personal political, creating new options for women and for political wives," historian Mary Linehan wrote in an essay for the book "The Presidential Companion: Readings on the First Ladies." In so doing, Ford redefined the role of the first lady for herself and those who followed.

During the ratification process for the Equal Rights Amendment, which ultimately failed to win approval, she wrote letters and telephoned state lawmakers in an attempt to enlist their support. Her outspoken advocacy alienated ERA foes, who at one point organized an angry picket line in front of the White House.

She startled a nationwide television audience one Sunday evening shortly after becoming first lady, telling CBS "60 Minutes" interviewer Morley Safer that she wouldn't be surprised if her daughter Susan, then 18, decided to have an affair. Ford said that she would "certainly counsel her and advise her on the subject, and I'd want to know pretty much about the young man that she was planning to have the affair with."

She went on to say that she assumed her children had tried marijuana and called the Supreme Court decision supporting a woman's right to have an abortion "the best thing in the world … a great, great decision."

The interview unleashed a torrent of negative mail to the White House. Some constituents said her comments reflected a breakdown of American morality and that they would not vote for her husband when he ran for election.

In 1976, President Ford lost to Jimmy Carter by fewer than 2 million votes but not because of his wife's outspokenness; analysts attributed his loss largely to his pardon of Nixon. National pre-election polls showed that almost three-quarters of Americans thought Betty Ford was an excellent first lady, and solid majorities agreed with her stands on controversial subjects, including whether she was right to talk about what she would do if Susan Ford was having an affair.

Although she was often counseled to temper her public remarks, Ford remained true to herself and held little back. The world found out that Gerald Ford was her second husband; she divorced the first, a furniture company representative named William Warren, on grounds of incompatibility after five years of marriage.

She offered information, even when she wasn't asked. Reporters "asked me everything but how often I sleep with my husband," she once said. "If they'd asked me that I would have told them: 'As often as possible.' "

Her husband had been minority leader of the House when he was selected by Nixon in 1973 to replace Agnew, who had resigned after pleading no contest to federal charges of income tax evasion. Ford served as vice president for only eight months, before Nixon himself resigned in the face of impeachment and certain conviction in the Senate for his role in the Watergate scandal.

At the start of her husband's abbreviated White House term, Ford indicated that she would prefer that her husband not run for the presidency in 1976. She later changed her mind, and campaigned for him enthusiastically. When it was all over, because Ford's voice had been reduced to a whisper by campaign speeches, he had his wife read to the press the telegram he had written conceding to Carter.

She was born Elizabeth Ann Bloomer in Chicago on April 8, 1918, and moved with her family to Grand Rapids, Mich., when she was 3. She was a vivacious child — her mother liked to say that Betty "popped out of a bottle of champagne." Although her father, a traveling salesman, was often away from home, she had a sunny childhood with few clouds until she was 16, when her father died of carbon monoxide poisoning while working on the family car.

At the age of 8, she began studying dance, which developed into a lifelong interest. After graduating from Grand Rapids' Central High School in 1936, she attended two summer sessions of the Bennington School of Dance in Vermont, where she met Martha Graham. She continued her dance career, studying with Graham for two years in New York, eventually as a member of the Martha Graham Concert Group. She also modeled part-time with the John Powers Agency.

She returned to Grand Rapids in 1941 and became a fashion coordinator for a department store. She also formed her own dance group and taught dance to disabled children. She decided to remain in Michigan. She continued to dance until she pinched a nerve in 1964 while trying to raise a window. The injury led her to begin taking prescription painkillers.

Not long after she divorced her first husband, she met Gerald Ford, who had recently returned to Grand Rapids after serving in the Navy in World War II. Their marriage was delayed for several months because Ford, a lawyer, was running for U.S. representative from Michigan's 5th Congressional District.

Ford was immediately caught up in his new work, and Betty Ford was determined to keep up with him. But soon she had other things to do: the Fords had four children within seven years.

"That was perhaps more than I expected," Mrs. Ford told Steinem in 1984.

In her 1973 interview with The Times, shortly after Ford was appointed vice president, she described the tensions and loneliness she suffered as a congressman's wife, problems that she said were compounded by the constant discomfort of the pinched nerve. In 1972, she began to see a psychiatrist, who also asked to see her husband.

"He saw him a couple of times," she said. "But it had nothing to do with Jerry. It was just his dumb wife."

She added: "It was helpful talking over the problems of being here alone quite a bit of the time and having to make decisions about the children at a crucial stage in their growing up. I had been assuming the role of both mother and father."

The pressures escalated in the White House, however, and Ford began to rely on tranquilizers and alcohol to cope. She later told Barbara Walters that she was taking 20 to 30 pills a day.

Her addictions, she said some years after leaving Washington, was "an escapism from all that living in a fishbowl to a certain extent and the pressure of always having to be 'on' when perhaps you feel very 'un-on' or very down inside."

A year after her husband's loss to Carter, Ford's problems worsened. She was dependent on "sleeping pills, pain pills, relaxer pills and the pills to counteract the side effects of other pills," she wrote in her 1987 book "Betty: A Glad Awakening." She had a glass of vodka or bourbon before dinner and another after dinner. She canceled or missed dates, shuffled around the house in her bathrobe, forgot important conversations with her children and spoke in a slur; she was groggy most of the time, walked unsteadily and cracked a rib in a fall. "I was dying," she said, "and everybody knew it but me."

Their daughter Susan was so alarmed by her mother's condition that, one week before her mother's 60th birthday — on April Fool's Day, 1978 — she arranged an intervention. Family members, accompanied by a medical team, gathered unannounced at the house in California and one by one told her how her addictions were hurting them and destroying her.

Their remarks cut her to the core; she was angry and resentful. "You hit the wall," she told Life magazine years later, recalling that day. "When you hit the wall, you better find a way to either go around it or over it. The disease (of addiction) is the wall."

When the emotionally grueling session was over, she decided to scale the wall. She publicly announced that she had an addiction problem and checked into the Long Beach Naval Hospital for a month of detox and therapy.

When she was well on the road to recovery, she had a facelift "to go with my beautiful new life." Of course, she told everyone about that too.

Ford figured if addiction could happen to her, it could happen to anyone, and she turned her energies toward helping others. With her neighbor, tire magnate Leonard Firestone, she raised $5 million to build an 80-bed facility in Rancho Mirage. Since its opening in October 1982, it has treated more than 75,000 people, including such well-known personalities as Peter Lawford, Liza Minnelli, Johnny Cash and Mary Tyler Moore, and it remains the most prestigious name in the drug and alcohol rehabilitation field.

"Rarely does anyone's name become a noun. Everyone knows what you're talking about if you say, 'I'm going to Betty Ford,' " John Robert Greene, a historian and Ford biographer, told the Baltimore Sun in 2006.

In her 80s, Betty Ford remained actively involved as chairwoman of the board and regularly welcomed new residents. Once a month, she started a meeting with patients by saying: "Hello, I'm Betty Ford, I'm an alcoholic and an addict."

"She speaks as one recovering alcoholic to another," the late actress Elizabeth Taylor, one of the facility's most celebrated residents, told People magazine of Ford. "There are no airs about her being first lady."

Ford, who lived in Rancho Mirage, is survived by her sons Michael Ford, John "Jack" Ford and Steven Ford; daughter Susan Ford Bales; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A service is planned in the Coachella Valley. The former first lady will be buried next to her husband at the presidential library in Grand Rapids.

Samuel Gridley1

b. 1647, d. 1712
     Samuel Gridley married Esther Thompson.1 Samuel Gridley was born in 1647.1 He was the son of Thomas Gridley and Mary Seymour.1 Samuel Gridley died in 1712.1

Citations

  1. [S278] Thomas Boslooper, "Thomas Gridley."

Esther Thompson1

b. 1655
     Esther Thompson married Samuel Gridley, son of Thomas Gridley and Mary Seymour.1 Esther Thompson was born in 1655.1

Citations

  1. [S278] Thomas Boslooper, "Thomas Gridley."

Sergeant John Griffin1

     Sergeant John Griffin married Anna Bancroft on 13 May 1647.

Children of Sergeant John Griffin and Anna Bancroft

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 123.
  2. [S359] William Alderman Parker, Alderman, Page 474.

Anna Bancroft

     Anna Bancroft married Sergeant John Griffin on 13 May 1647.

Children of Anna Bancroft and Sergeant John Griffin

Citations

  1. [S359] William Alderman Parker, Alderman, Page 474.

Deacon Michael Humphrey1

b. 20 November 1703, d. 1778
     Deacon Michael Humphrey was born on 20 November 1703 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1 He was the son of Deacon John Humphrey and Sarah Pettibone.1 Deacon Michael Humphrey married Mercy Humphrey, daughter of Jonathan Humphrey and Mercy Ruggles, on 15 September 1735 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1 Deacon Michael Humphrey died in 1778.

Children of Deacon Michael Humphrey and Mercy Humphrey

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 125.

Mercy Humphrey1

b. 21 October 1717, d. 1793
     Mercy Humphrey was born on 21 October 1717 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1 She was the daughter of Jonathan Humphrey and Mercy Ruggles. Mercy Humphrey married Deacon Michael Humphrey, son of Deacon John Humphrey and Sarah Pettibone, on 15 September 1735 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1 Mercy Humphrey died in 1793.1

Children of Mercy Humphrey and Deacon Michael Humphrey

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 125.

Hon. Daniel Humphrey1

b. 17 August 1737, d. 27 August 1813
     Hon. Daniel Humphrey was born on 17 August 1737 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1,2 He was the son of Deacon Michael Humphrey and Mercy Humphrey. Hon. Daniel Humphrey married Rachel Phelps, daughter of Lt. David Phelps and Abigail Pettibone, on 10 April 1760 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1,2 Hon. Daniel Humphrey died on 27 August 1813 at age 76.1,2 He was buried at Hop Meadow Cemetery, Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.2

Children of Hon. Daniel Humphrey and Rachel Phelps

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 126.
  2. [S810] Edwin W. Strickland II, William Buell, 1-8, page 217.

Abigail Griswold

b. 29 April 1770
     Abigail Griswold was born on 29 April 1770.1 She was the daughter of Nathaniel Griswold and Abigail Pinney.1 Abigail Griswold married Captain Amasa Humphrey, son of Hezekiah Humphrey and Amy Cornish.

Citations

  1. [S116] Esther Griswold French and Robert Lewis French, Griswold, Page 106.

Mary Humphrey1

b. 4 January 1753, d. 19 March 1818
     Mary Humphrey was born on 4 January 1753. She was the daughter of Hezekiah Humphrey and Amy Cornish. Mary Humphrey married Capt. Bartholomew Case, son of Thomas Case and Elizabeth Woodford. Mary Humphrey died on 19 March 1818 at age 65.2 She was buried at Simsbury Cemetery, Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.

Child of Mary Humphrey and Capt. Bartholomew Case

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 135.
  2. [S807] Find A Grave, online http://www.findagrave.com, Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 19 June 2019), memorial page for Mary Case (unknown–19 Mar 1818), Find A Grave Memorial no. 136403461, citing Simsbury Cemetery, Simsbury, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA ; Maintained by C Greer (contributor 47180683) .
  3. [S59] Ruth Cost Duncan, John Case, Page 74, Item 164.

Col. Aurora Case1,2

b. 20 March 1787
     Col. Aurora Case was born on 20 March 1787.1,2 He was the son of Capt. Bartholomew Case and Mary Humphrey.1,2

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 135.
  2. [S59] Ruth Cost Duncan, John Case, Page 74, Item 164.

Esquire John Humphrey1

b. 17 March 1700/1, d. 2 November 1760
     Esquire John Humphrey was born on 17 March 1700/1 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1 He was the son of Deacon John Humphrey and Sarah Pettibone. Esquire John Humphrey died on 2 November 1760 at New Haven, New Haven Co., CT, at age 59.1

Children of Esquire John Humphrey and Lydia Reed

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 123.
  2. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 136.

Lieutenant Nathaniel Humphrey1

b. 20 May 1735, d. 1822
     Lieutenant Nathaniel Humphrey was born on 20 May 1735 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT. He was the son of Esquire John Humphrey and Lydia Reed. Lieutenant Nathaniel Humphrey married Maria Humphrey, daughter of Charles Humphrey and Hepzibah Pettibone, on 2 January 1755. Lieutenant Nathaniel Humphrey died in 1822.

Child of Lieutenant Nathaniel Humphrey and Maria Humphrey

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 136.

Major Elihu Humphrey1

b. 14 April 1738, d. 25 February 1777
     Major Elihu Humphrey was born on 14 April 1738 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1 He was the son of Esquire John Humphrey and Lydia Reed.1 Major Elihu Humphrey married Asenath Humphrey, daughter of Col. Jonathan Humphrey and Desire Owen, on 7 April 1763 at Simsbury, Hartford Co., CT.1 Major Elihu Humphrey died on 25 February 1777 at age 38.1

Child of Major Elihu Humphrey and Asenath Humphrey

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 136.

Asenath Humphrey

b. 1765, d. 1 October 1825
     Asenath Humphrey was born in 1765. She was the daughter of Major Elihu Humphrey and Asenath Humphrey.1 Asenath Humphrey married David Phelps, son of Capt. David Phelps and Abigail Griswold, before 24 March 1792. Asenath Humphrey died on 1 October 1825.

Child of Asenath Humphrey and David Phelps

Citations

  1. [S275] Frederick Humphreys, Humphreys, Volume I, Page 136.