Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer Page 7

  Betty wasn’t too concerned because, honestly, she didn’t think Jerry had a chance of winning. Only old men go to Congress, she thought. Still, she saw how much this meant to him, and she wanted to do everything she could to be supportive.

  In June 1948, just before the filing deadline, Jerry announced both his candidacy and his engagement to Betty Bloomer Warren. From that point on, Betty recalled, “it was wild.” People were throwing engagement parties, Betty was working at Herpolsheimer’s and helping with the campaign, while Jerry was “campaigning furiously.”

  “He took to campaigning like a starving man to a roast-beef dinner,” she wrote. He was on the trail from early morning until late at night, up and down the two counties of Michigan’s Fifth District. Betty found herself getting caught up in the excitement—she liked the challenge of being the underdog—and every evening after work, she would dash down to the “Ford for Congress” headquarters and join the volunteers making phone calls, stuffing envelopes, or doing anything else to make herself useful. She recruited models and dancing friends to help with the campaign, and when they’d say, “I’ve never been in politics,” Betty would reply, “I don’t know anything about politics, either, but you can lick stamps and stuff envelopes, can’t you?”

  She asked her friend Kay DeFreest to head the women’s division of the campaign, and Kay promptly set out to coerce as many females as she could to work on behalf of Jerry. They’d write letters to ten friends supporting Jerry and then ask each of them to write ten more letters—a political chain letter campaign targeting women voters. Kay recalled that everyone who knew Jerry Ford was willing to help, “most particularly because of Jerry’s character. There wasn’t any way that you could look at that young man and not know that every word he said came right from the heart. There was no falsifying or no putting on of any false front. Anything he talked on, he knew about. It was either through personal contact or through extensive reading and studying all angles of government.”

  Everyone who worked for him felt the same way. “There was no pretense there. We were most pleased to do anything we could to further his career, and we did,” Kay added.

  From June until September, it was nonstop. Jerry went door-to-door in Grand Rapids, gave speeches at county fairs, tromped into the fields to speak with farmers, and shook hands with factory workers as they finished their shifts, while Betty ran around asking storekeepers to put up posters. “It was exhilarating to be in a race like that,” she remembered. And, although she had no idea what being a political wife would entail, somewhere along the line she found herself wanting him to win.

  “We worked our tails off,” Jerry said. “We had the organization, and we developed the momentum.”

  Throughout the frenzy of the campaign, Jerry’s good friend Jack Stiles was concerned that this upcoming marriage might not work. “Like fire and water,” he told Jerry, “sometimes politics and marriage don’t mix.”

  Late one night, Jerry and Jack were sitting in Jack’s car after another frantic day, and Jerry said, “What do you think about me marrying Betty?”

  “Well, I’ve known Betty since she was a teenager,” Jack said, “and she’s a terrific gal. But I don’t know if she can put up with your damn political ambitions.”

  About ten days later, Betty had a similar conversation with Jack.

  “What do you think about Jerry and me?”

  “Well, Betty,” Jack said, “if you can accept the idea that politics will come first and your marriage second, if you can live with that, then I think you’ll have a good marriage. You’ll make a good team in Washington.”

  Washington. That’s when it hit her. When Betty had said she’d marry Jerry, she thought she’d be marrying a Grand Rapids lawyer; they’d buy a house and raise a family right in their hometown. But if Jerry won the primary, it was almost guaranteed he’d be going to Congress: the Fifth District hadn’t elected a Democrat to the House since 1910.

  Their hard work paid off, and on September 14, 1948, Jerry Ford won the Republican primary in a huge upset, defeating incumbent Barney Jonkman by nearly two to one. Betty’s previous marriage hadn’t been an issue at all, and now, finally, they could set a wedding date. Jerry had just one stipulation: the wedding couldn’t interfere with a Michigan football game.

  Over the next few weeks, Betty didn’t fully realize it, but she was already getting a taste of what life with Congressman Jerry Ford would be like. While she designed her wedding dress, chose flowers, and sent invitations, Jerry was still spending every waking hour campaigning.

  Betty became close with Janet Ford, the wife of Jerry’s brother Tom, and at one point, Betty complained to her future sister-in-law about Jerry’s single-minded focus on politics.

  “You won’t have to worry about other women,” Janet warned her. “Jerry’s work will be the other woman.”

  Indeed, one of the things Betty admired about her husband-to-be was that he was a hard worker. “I loved him for that,” she said. There were so many qualities she loved about him: his strength, his goodness. He was one of the most honest, fair, caring people she had ever known.

  The wedding was set for October 15—eighteen days before the general election, and on a Friday, “because it was fall, and in the fall, we couldn’t miss a Saturday football game.” Especially when Michigan was playing rival Northwestern University at home.

  The night before the wedding, Jerry’s parents held a rehearsal dinner at the Peninsular Club: a swanky private club in Grand Rapids for prominent businessmen and of which Jerry’s father was a member. As it turned out, both of Michigan’s senators—Republicans Arthur H. Vandenberg and Homer Ferguson—were appearing at a GOP dinner at the same time, just five blocks away, and Jerry figured he could time it to make both events. He showed up for the cocktail reception at the Peninsular, had a drink, and then just as the meal was being served during his own wedding rehearsal dinner, he ducked out, promising to make it back in time for dessert.

  While most brides would have been fuming, Betty took it in stride. Jerry returned as promised, and the photos Betty saved in an album show the two of them laughing and looking at each other with adoration.

  The following afternoon, families and friends of Betty Bloomer Warren and Gerald R. Ford Jr. filed into the floral-decorated pews at Grace Episcopal Church as the organist played in the background. For this second marriage, Betty had chosen an elegant two-piece blue satin suit with a fitted jacket that accentuated her tiny waist, and instead of a veil, she wore a matching hat affixed with a long piece of rose-colored lace that had come off a parasol belonging to Jerry’s grandmother. She looked ravishing. The only thing missing was the groom.

  It was four o’clock, and Jerry had yet to appear. Betty was “growing more livid by the moment,” when suddenly Jerry came rushing in. He had been campaigning all day, pushing it to the last possible moment, and while he’d managed to change into a suit and tie, he’d completely neglected to notice that his shoes were covered in mud. Betty pretended not to notice, but Jerry’s mother was furious. As soon as they got to the reception at the Kent Country Club, Dorothy “gave him the devil,” Betty recalled. It was something they’d laugh about for years to come.

  There were toasts, and cake, and after a couple of hours, the new Mr. and Mrs. Ford, delirious with joy, set off for Ann Arbor, chauffeured by best man Jack Beckwith—the three of them piled into the front seat of Jack’s car. The celebration continued with dinner and champagne at the Town Club, a private club in the Allenel Hotel, “whooping it up” with friends until the wee hours, when the newlyweds finally went up to their room.

  Their honeymoon began sitting in bleacher seats watching the Michigan-Northwestern football game on Saturday afternoon (Michigan won, 28–0), followed by a seventy-mile drive to Owosso, where they sat in the bleachers at another football field to hear Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey speak at a rally. “The thing wasn’t over ’til midnight,” Betty recalled, “and of course my new husba
nd and I stayed to the bitter end.”

  They’d booked a hotel in Detroit but didn’t arrive until three o’clock Sunday morning. Jerry spent the day reading every newspaper he could find, and Monday, after a stop in Ann Arbor, where Jerry had a meeting, they headed back to Grand Rapids. On the return drive, Betty was looking forward to finally having a relaxing evening at home with her new husband, and mentioned she might cook a roast for dinner.

  “Oh, Betty,” Jerry said, “I won’t be home for dinner tonight. There’s a meeting that I just have to attend. Can you just make me a sandwich?”

  “Of course, dear,” Betty said without complaint.

  During the months that Betty and Jerry had been courting, she’d rarely seen him before ten thirty or eleven o’clock at night, when he’d stop by her apartment after whatever civic group or community meeting he’d attended. She found it natural while they were dating—and, of course, during those wild weeks of the campaign, it was understandable—but she didn’t expect it to be that way once they were married.

  “Like every woman,” she said, “I thought that when you sign that certificate and walk down the aisle, all of a sudden everything changes, and you have all his attention and regular hours. Well, that wasn’t meant to be.”

  Still, she couldn’t be mad. She adored Jerry and was so proud. She heated up a can of tomato soup, grilled a couple of cheese sandwiches, and off he went.

  The next two weeks were a whirlwind as Jerry continued campaigning nonstop until election day. On November 2, 1948, Democrat incumbent Harry S. Truman narrowly held on to the White House, and Gerald R. Ford Jr. was elected to a two-year term in Congress, winning nearly 61 percent of the vote.

  Shortly thereafter, saddled with $7,000 in campaign debt, Jerry and Betty headed to Washington, DC, to begin their new adventure together, filled with hope, excitement, and newlywed passion.

  PART TWO

  BETTY FORD, WASHINGTON WOMAN

  Like so many women at the time, Betty set aside her own dreams to support those of her husband. She wanted Jerry to be proud of her, and as with everything she did, Betty gave being a congressman’s wife 100 percent. What began as a two-year term in Washington turned into four years, then six, then eight, as Jerry continually got reelected. As he gained seniority in Congress, and traveled frequently, Betty was expected to be active in Congressional wives’ groups; a consummate hostess; travel guide to Michigan constituents visiting Washington; while simultaneously managing a busy household that grew to include four children.

  On the outside it looked like she had it all: the former model and dancer, the beautiful congressman’s wife with the picture-perfect family.

  But inside, Betty was struggling to find her own identity.

  5

  * * *

  A Congressman’s Wife

  The first order of events was for Jerry and Betty to find a place to live. They quickly discovered that the political community on Capitol Hill was small, and people were eager to help. Senator and Mrs. Homer Ferguson from Michigan graciously allowed them to stay in their apartment while they looked for a place of their own.

  Meanwhile, Hortense and Arthur Godwin were wintering in Hollywood, Florida. On November 18, Arthur wrote Betty a letter on Hortense’s personalized stationery:

  Dear Betty:

  Your mother is sick in the hospital. She had an attack of [food] poisoning about two o’clock in the morning on November 10th.

  I telephoned Dr. Snow, and he was at the apartment in about 15 minutes. He gave Horty an injection which put her to sleep in a short time. We phoned for a trained nurse and took her to the hospital in the morning and secured three trained nurses in eight hour shifts so that she is never alone, and she is feeling much better.

  The letter went on to say that tests showed blood in Hortense’s spinal fluid; the doctor thought a vein in her neck might have ruptured, but, fortunately, no paralysis. They were hopeful she’d be well enough to be released from the hospital in a couple of weeks.

  I didn’t write before because I didn’t want to worry you, but feel now that there is nothing to worry about . . . We were both delighted to receive your nice letter.

  The letter was signed: “Your Loving Dad, Arthur.”

  Unfortunately, Arthur sent the letter to Betty in Grand Rapids, after she and Jerry had already left for Washington. Late on the evening of November 19, Arthur called Jerry’s family in Grand Rapids and told them that Hortense had taken a turn for the worse. By the time they were able to reach Betty in Washington, it was ten o’clock.

  Jerry booked Betty on the next available flight, and after hours of frustrating mechanical delays, she finally arrived in Florida at nine the next morning. Arthur was waiting for her when she got off the plane, and as soon as she saw his face, she knew it was too late.

  “She’s gone, honey,” he said. Her mother had died just three hours earlier. Betty and her stepfather stood there “holding on to one another, numb with cold, in the hot glare of the sun.”

  It was a devastating blow. Hortense was just sixty-four years old. She wouldn’t see Jerry take his oath in Congress; she wouldn’t know her grandchildren; and Betty had suddenly lost her role model—the woman she had looked up to her entire life.

  Through the tears, Betty tried to comfort her stepfather, and herself. “She would not have wanted to live a restricted life—mentally or physically,” Betty said. “It was probably a blessing God took her.”

  In her autobiography, Betty wrote: “I believe there’s a meaning for everyone’s coming into this world, that we’re put here for a purpose and when we’ve achieved that and it’s time for us to go, the Lord takes us, and nothing can make it otherwise.”

  Like so many other times in her life, Betty found inner strength through her faith and relationship with God. Her heart was breaking, but she knew her mother would want her to keep her chin up and move forward.

  On January 3, 1949, Betty was filled with pride as she sat with Jerry’s parents in a corner of the gallery, overlooking the chamber of the US House of Representatives as her husband was sworn in as a new member of the Eighty-First Congress.

  Jerry and Betty had moved into a one-bedroom apartment at 2500 Q Street NW at the edge of Georgetown, just west of Rock Creek Parkway. It was a quick drive into the heart of downtown DC, and while Jerry was at work, Betty quickly learned her way around. On drizzly spring days, she’d walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, peering in the gates surrounding the White House, never imagining that one day she’d be living inside those historic walls. Before meeting Jerry, Betty hadn’t followed politics, but now that she was the wife of a congressman, she figured she’d better learn how things worked. She’d go downtown and watch the US Supreme Court in session, or head over to the Capitol and sit in the galleries of Congress, paying attention to the protocol, trying to understand the way bills and legislation got passed. She’d talk to Jerry about what she’d learned and ask all kinds of questions. He was passionate about being a public servant, furthering the causes of his constituents, and she wanted to speak the same language. It was all new and very exciting.

  “I was not a political animal,” she noted in her memoir. “I had to really bone up on our government.”

  It didn’t take long for Betty to discover that her sister-in-law Janet had meant it when she warned Betty about work being Jerry’s mistress. Even on the weekends, he’d go into the office. With no staff there, Betty would accompany him to help with the filing and whatever else she could do—just so she could be with her husband.

  The election of 1948, which returned Harry Truman to the White House, was a landslide for the Democratic Party. In a complete turnaround, the Republicans lost seventy-five seats, giving the opposing party control of the House, the Senate, and the executive branch. It might not have been the most welcoming time to come to Washington as a Republican, but Betty quickly found a camaraderie with other politicians’ wives—both Republican and Democrat. She developed warm friendships with Muriel Humph
rey, wife of Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, from Minnesota; Abigail McCarthy, Representative Eugene McCarthy’s wife, also from Minnesota; and Pat Nixon, wife of California congressman Richard M. Nixon.

  “We were all new together,” Betty recalled. It was a time when politics was more civil, and differing political views were left at the Capitol. Men could “berate each other up one side and down the other on the floor of the House,” and yet later they’d be at a cocktail party patting each other on the back, saying, “You did a damn good job arguing that point.”

  Lady Bird Johnson was another woman who befriended Betty and made a special effort to include her. Her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, had just been elected junior senator of Texas, and after ten years in Congress, was a rising power in the Democratic Party. At one of the first parties Jerry and Betty attended, Lady Bird made a point to introduce the Fords to her husband. “Lyndon,” she said, pulling him from across the room, “I want you to meet this young couple. They’ve just come to Washington.”

  There was a strict protocol to everything in Washington, especially when it came to who made the guest list to various social events. At first, the invitations came to “Representative Gerald R. Ford,” with no “Mrs.” attached. So, Jerry would go off to the event, leaving Betty home alone. The next day, she’d run into some of the other wives who had been to the same function.