The staffs of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids and the Ford Library in Ann Arbor were invaluable. I am grateful to Elaine Didier, Don Holloway, Jamie Draper, Geir Gundersen, Stacy Davis, and Elizabeth Druga for their knowledge and assistance every step of the way. At the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, I am thankful to Joe and Donna Calvaruso, Marty Allen, Hank and Liesel Meijer, David and Judy Frey, and Bob and Judy Hooker for their support of this project from the beginning. Special thanks to Bob and Nancy Sellers for their hospitality in Harbor Springs and the introduction to their Michigan friends that set everything in motion.
One of the highlights during my research was visiting the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage. The staff is truly amazing and it’s easy to understand why the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation continues to be the gold standard in addiction recovery. I am incredibly grateful to Laurie Skochil, Mark Mishek, Jerry Moe, Dr. Marv Seppala, Jim Steinhagen, Mark Baumgartner, Neil Gussardo, Jerry McDonald, Joan Clark, Carolyn Friend, and the anonymous patient who gave me a tour of her room.
It was important to me to visit the Fords’ former residences and it was wonderful to find that the current owners are keenly aware and proud of the historical significance of their homes. Thanks to the Lloyd and Bailey families in Alexandria, and to John McIlwee and Bill Damaschke in Rancho Mirage, who graciously allowed me to tour their residences.
Many thanks to former Secret Service agents Larry Buendorf, Dick Keiser, Dick Hartwig, Bob Alberi, Jerry Bechtle, Ron Johnston, Bob Innamorati, and Paul Masto, all of whom spoke to me with great discretion and the utmost admiration for President and Mrs. Ford.
This is now my fifth book with Gallery Books, and the team there has become like family. My editor, Mitchell Ivers, is simply the best and I’m so honored he brought me this project. Huge thanks to the trailblazing team of Jennifer Bergstrom, Jennifer Robinson, Aimee Bell, and Jennifer Long for their passion and enthusiasm, and to Hannah Brown, Abby Zidle, Diana Velasquez, Mackenzie Hickey, Anabel Jimenez, Alexandre Su, Caroline Pallotta, and Jaime Putorti for their behind-the-scenes efforts that contributed to this beautiful book.
Thanks to Kayla Tucker, my research assistant who helped with tasks big and small, and to Josie Freedman, my agent at ICM, who shares a passion for this story. I am grateful to my parents, Wyman and Gay Harris, and my sister, Stephanie Ryder, for their love and encouragement, and to Meg Crofton and my (almost) daily walking partner Mary Potuznik for their friendship and wisdom.
And finally, to Cooper, Connor, Abby, and Clint: I can’t imagine life without you. I am blessed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY BARBARA VAUGHN
Lisa McCubbin is an award-winning journalist who has been a television news anchor and reporter, hosted her own radio show, and spent six years in the Middle East as a freelance writer. She is the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Five Presidents, Five Days in November, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, and The Kennedy Detail. Visit her at LisaMcCubbin.com.
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Coauthored with Clint Hill
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Coauthored with Gerald Blaine
The Kennedy Detail
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NOTES
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Abbreviations Used in the Notes
ATTH
Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford (New York: Harper & Row, 1979).
BAGA
Betty Ford with Chris Chase, Betty: A Glad Awakening (New York: Doubleday, 1987).
TTOML
Betty Ford with Chris Chase, The Times of My Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).
Prologue
“It’s time”: Susan Ford Bales, in discussion with author, February 17, 2017.
“Dad,” she pleaded, “you need to come home immediately”: BAGA, 14.
“This is not going to be pleasant”: ibid., 17.
“No,” Dr. Pursch responded. “It never is”: ibid.
“scared to death”: Caroline Coventry Morgan, in discussion with author, February 27, 2017.
“After you’ve buried somebody”: BAGA, 14.
“the boys”: Susan Ford Bales, discussion, February 17, 2017.
“Mom, you need to stop”: ibid.; also BAGA, 11.
“Well, I am stopping”: Susan Ford Bales, discussion, February 17, 2017.
What a bunch of pips: BAGA, 10; also Morgan, discussion, May 20, 2017.
“You’re all a bunch of monsters . . . never come back!”: BAGA, 11.
“Mike! Gayle!”: Michael Ford, discussion with author, October 26, 2017.
“Mother . . . sit down”: BAGA, 19.
“This is Dr. Joe Pursch”: Morgan, discussion, May 19, 2017.
“almost like a doll”: BAGA, 19.
“Mrs. Ford, you don’t have to be alarmed”: ibid.
“Mike, you start”: Michael Ford, discussion, October 26, 2017.
“Mom,” he said, “being the oldest”: ibid.; also BAGA, 18.
“Mother,” Gayle began, “you know we’ve been married”: BAGA, 19.
“There were so many times”: ibid., 18; also Jack Ford, in discussion with author, February 17, 2018.
“Betty, we love you”: Steve Ford, in discussion with author, November 23, 2016.
“Mom, do you remember that weekend”: ibid.
He’s got some nerve: BAGA, 22.
“Mom, when I was little”: BAGA, 20; also Susan Ford Bales, discussion, February 17, 2017.
“We love you, Betty . . . we love you”: Steve Ford, discussion, November 23, 2016.
PART 1: BETTY FORD, DANCER
1: The Bloomer Girl
“Mother always said I’d popped out of a bottle of champagne”: TTOML, 6.
William S. Bloomer had accepted a job: “Notes of the Rubber Trade,” India Rubber Review (June 15, 1918): 374, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433108137906;view=1up;seq=380.
The house at 1410 Josephine Street: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, State Compendium: Colorado, 1920 Population, Denver, CO, District 0247, www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/state-compendium/06229686v1-7ch05.pdf, 4B.
taking a position at the Quaker City Rubber Company: “Bloomer with Quaker City,” Personals of the Rubber Trade, Rubber Age and Tire News 7, no. 1 (April 10, 1920): 24, https://books.google.com/books?id=w7Y7AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=%22The+Rubber+Age+and+Tire+News%22+%22April+10,+1920%22&source=bl&ots=yEerrATo02&sig=jyi2_WkeMKsrOnCN9vLS5slI-rM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0zray0q_aAhUCyYMKHWbRCiEQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Rubber%20Age%20and%20Tire%20News%22%20%22April%2010%2C%201920%22&f=false.
“filled with light”: TTOML, 8.
Hortense’s cousin Charlotte Neahr Irwin: Bonnie Bloomer Baker, in discussion with author, July 13, 2017; also Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, State Compendium: Michigan, 1920 Population, Grand Rapids City, Kent County, MI, Ward 3, www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/state-compendium/06229686v20-25ch1.pdf, 19A.
rent a lakeside cottage for $10 a week: Michigan Summer Resorts: A Guide to the Summering P
laces in the Lake and River Region of the State of Michigan (Detroit: Pere Marquette Railway Company, 1913), 37.
“Please do not feed this child”: TTOML, 7.
“He was a great fisherman”: ibid.
“terrible tomboy”: ibid., 9.
“Oh, dear Betty . . . don’t you realize?”: Lynn Minton, “Betty Ford Talks About Her Mother,” McCall’s, May 1976.
“You sound just like a horse”: TTOML, 10.
Spankings in the household were rare: Minton, “Betty Ford Talks About Her Mother.”
“every phase of dance art”: Calla Travis Graded System of Dance Instruction Loose Notes, Kay Clark Grand Rapids Dance Collection, box 1, folder 29, Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, MI.
“Ladies! . . . You sit with your legs crossed!”: Ann Lewis, in discussion with author, October 29, 2016.
“I signed up for everything”: TTOML, 17.
“She was pretty”: Lilian Fisher, interview by Richard Norton Smith, February 27, 2012, transcript, Oral History Project, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Grand Rapids, MI, 2, https://geraldrfordfoundation.org/centennial-docs/oralhistory/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Lilian-Fisher-.pdf.
“There was no kind of dance”: TTOML, 17.
Betty cleverly realized: ibid.
She would bring in a phonograph: ibid., 14.
Some committed suicide: Fisher, interview, 4.
would be no more household help: TTOML, 16.
“Twenty-five, ninety-five. Third-floor sportswear”: ibid., 18.
“Talk about personality . . . She was one hell of a gal”: Barbara Boorn, “Betty’s Blooming as First Lady No Surprise to Grand Rapids Friends,” Accent, June 1976, 18.
Betty earned $3 a week: TTOML, 18.
“she could come down the stairs”: Boorn, “Betty’s Blooming,” 14.
the girls liked her, the boys liked her: Lewis, discussion, October 29, 2016.
“She was very popular”: Fisher, interview, 3.
“I would set my cap for somebody”: TTOML, 19.
“You’re no gentleman”: ibid., 36.
“You’ll meet a tall, dark stranger”: Jean Libman Block, “The Betty Ford No One Knows,” Good Housekeeping, May 1974.
“You will be meeting kings and queens”: ibid., also TTOML, ix.
wheeling up: ibid., 21.
“waving and yelling and showing off”: ibid.
“Shh!” . . . “Just calm down”: ibid.
“What’s happened?”: ibid.
“They had to take your father”: ibid.
“efforts to revive him were of no avail”: Obituary, Grand Rapids (MI) Press, July 19, 1934.
he had been unemployed: ibid.
“He’d gone through the Depression and lost everything”: Biography: This Week, “Betty Ford: One Day at a Time.”
her father had been an alcoholic: TTOML, 286; also Biography: This Week, “Betty Ford: One Day at a Time,” featuring Betty Ford, President Gerald Ford, the Ford children, Gloria Steinem, aired October 4, 1998, on CBS, copy provided to author courtesy of GRF Library, 2003-NLF-010-025.
“It was rougher for everybody after that”: TTOML, 22.
“how independent a woman can be if she needs to be”: Betty Ford: The Real Deal (MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, PBS Home Video, 2009, 60:00), DVD.
“beautiful”: Minton, “Betty Ford Talks About Her Mother,” 76.
“I told her what I wanted to”: ibid.
“did sort of a sloppy job . . . If you don’t do it well, don’t do it at all”: ibid.
“We had black patent tap shoes”: Edith “Toto” Fisher, in discussion with author, November 20, 2016.
That year, Miss Travis invited: Kay DeFreest (name appears as Mrs. Collins C. Clark), interview by Thomas F. Soapes, January 28, 1980, Oral History Interview, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, MI, March 3, 2017, www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0268/38-0268-f-1536968.pdf.
2: The Martha Graham of Grand Rapids
Martha Hill, Doris Humphrey, Louis Horst: personal scrapbooks and mementoes, Betty Ford Personal Papers Collection, viewed by author at Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, MI, October 26, 2016.
“born to dance”: Mrs. Ford’s Remarks, Bennington Arts Center Dedication, May 22, 1976, Frances K. Pullen Files, box 1, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, MI.
“We breathed, we ate, we slept—nothing but dance”: ibid.
Betty, despite having ten years of dance experience, landed in group one: personal scrapbooks and mementoes, Betty Ford Personal Papers Collection, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, MI.
Breakfast was at seven fifteen: ibid.
“Martha Graham Technique”: Betty Ford personal memos from Bennington College, Betty Ford Personal Papers Collection, viewed by author at Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, MI, October 26, 2016.
In between classes: Mrs. Ford’s Remarks, Bennington Arts Center Dedication, May 22, 1976.
“Bennington Campus Seethes with Women Who Jump in Odd Fashion”: TTOML, 26.
“ecstasy”: ibid., 23.
“worshipped her as a goddess”: ibid., 24.
“a beautiful instrument”: ibid.
“grabbed Martha’s hand, and blurted out”: ibid., 26.
“colorful”: ibid.
“straight from the sticks”: ibid., 28.
“This is a waste of time, I’m not going to make it”: Block, “Betty Ford No One Knows,” 139.
“I’ll see you”: ibid.
“Come into my office”: TTOML, 28.
“pretty heavy”: ibid., 29.
She cut out all his columns: personal scrapbooks, Betty Ford Personal Papers Collection, viewed by author at Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, MI, October 25, 2016.
“You’ve got ability”: TTOML, 30.
“You can’t carouse and be a dancer too”: ibid.
“had arrived”: ibid., 31.
“sixteen-year-old girl with her first beau”: ibid., 34.
“come home for six months”: ibid., 31.
“part of a training of a dancer”: Anna Kisselgoff, “A Martha Graham Student Comes Back,” New York Times online, June 12, 1975.
“I’m going home for six months”: TTOML, 32.
“I think it’s a wise thing for you to do”: ibid.
“Where Fortunate Children Spend Summer at Play”: “Parents Find Good Training Is Helpful,” Rhinelander Daily News, September 4, 1930.
“a happy and safe out-of-doors vacation for the growing girl”: Bryn Afon: A Camp for Girls brochure, personal scrapbooks, Betty Ford Personal Papers Collection, viewed by author at Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, MI, October 27, 2016.
“You took the train”: Lewis, discussion, October 29, 2016.
“She was fun”: ibid.
Grand Rapids Concert Dance Group: Boorn, “Betty’s Blooming,” 15.
“Martha Graham of Grand Rapids”: TTOML, 33.
“wild friends”: ibid., 34.
“I won’t talk to you now”: ibid.
“That’s all right”: ibid.
“typically a generous-natured man”: ibid., 37.
“there were always boys lined up for her”: Betty Ford: The Real Deal.
“wined and dined by the local bachelors”: TTOML, 36.
“the five-year misunderstanding”: ibid., 39.
3: The Five-Year Misunderstanding
an agent with the Northwestern National Insurance Company: Ignazio Messina, “Betty Ford lived in Area with 1st Spouse,” Toledo (OH) Blade, July 11, 2011.
“demonstrator”: ibid.
“She was spectacular looking”: ibid.
“We moved around, pillar to post”: TTOML, 39.
“Bill Warren was very ambitious”: DeFreest, interview, 3.
“Why don’t you come down here, and we’ll go somewhere to eat?”: TTOML, 41.
“a little backup”: DeFreest, interview, 3.
“the
things that made our dating so amusing, made the marriage difficult”: TTOML, 41.
“He can do what he wants with his life . . . this is not for me”: TTOML, 42.
“I’m sending your things to your family’s house”: ibid.
“Bill has taken ill”: ibid.
What am I doing here when I no longer love this man?: ibid.
This must be my cross: ibid.
He was physically and emotionally abusive: James Cannon, Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), 41.
she called him Junior, or Junie: ibid., 42.
Gerald would take the boys camping: ATTH, 45.
“I’m Leslie King, your father”: ibid., 47.
“Now, you buy yourself something”: ibid., 48.
“a carefree, well-to-do man”: ibid.
Jerry lay in bed, sobbing, turning to prayer: Cannon, Gerald R. Ford, 47.
“Have you ever been a model?”: James Cannon, Time and Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appointment with History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 28.
the two of them appeared in a six-page spread: Look, March 12, 1940, accessed online at www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/selected/Look.pdf.
“After his mother, I was the first important woman”: Cannon, Time and Chance, 29.
“The end of our relationship caused me real anguish”: ATTH, 57.
“as much action as I’d ever hoped to see”: ibid., 58.
4: A Courtship and a Campaign
“Who’s around that a bachelor my age can date?”: ATTH, 62.
The two had been friends: Gordon L. Olson, “In the Name of All Marys . . .”: A History of the Mary Free Bed Guild and the Mary Free Bed Hospital and Rehabilitation Center (Grand Rapids, MI: Mary Free Bed Guild, 1991), 53; also in TTOML, 46. Note that in TTOML, Betty incorrectly spells Peggy’s last name as Newman.
“How about Betty Warren?”: ATTH, 62.
“She’s getting a divorce”: ibid.
“Well, would you give her a call?”: ibid.
“Hello, Betty”: The pursuant conversation was re-created from ATTH, 62–63; also TTOML, 46.
Betty Ford Page 41