Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer Read online

  “Where were you last night?” they’d ask. “We saw Jerry, but we didn’t see you.”

  “I wasn’t invited,” Betty said matter-of-factly. Years earlier, before her wedding to Bill Warren, Betty had bought, and studied, Emily Post’s book of etiquette. She knew that you wore gloves to a tea but took them off during a receiving line, and she knew that if your name wasn’t on the invitation, you simply were not on the guest list.

  After this happened a few times, she had a chat with Jerry about it. Apparently, word hadn’t spread that the handsome new congressman was no longer a bachelor. It wasn’t long before all the invitations were addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford Jr.”

  One subject on which Jerry and Betty were totally in sync was that both wanted to start a family as soon as possible. After six months of earnest trying, and still no sign that Betty was pregnant, they both underwent fertility testing. It turned out Betty had a tipped uterus, which, in 1949, was commonly but incorrectly thought to be a cause of infertility. She had a surgical “adjustment,” and by summertime, she was thrilled to be able to tell Jerry they were expecting a baby.

  This being their first summer in Washington, Betty and Jerry were not used to the oppressive heat and humidity, and without air conditioning in their apartment, it was almost unbearable for Betty. Her stepfather had been begging her to visit him at the house on Lake Michigan, and now that seemed like the perfect solution. She stayed with Dad Godwin at his beach cottage through the fall, with Jerry visiting her on weekends. It worked out well because he could focus on his new job during the week without worrying about Betty, and it was just long enough for them to miss each other for happy reunions on the weekends. After spending Christmas in Grand Rapids, Betty and Jerry returned to Washington in January when Congress went back in session.

  With the baby due at the end of February, Betty didn’t venture out as much as she had when she’d first arrived in Washington, saving her energy for only the most important events. During this time, the White House was undergoing much-needed renovations, so President and Mrs. Truman had moved into the president’s official guesthouse across the street, Blair House. First Lady Bess Truman was holding a series of teas for the congressional wives, inviting the ladies in small groups due to the limited space at the temporary residence. At the time, Betty wasn’t crazy about President Truman—his politics were often in sharp contrast to her views—but being invited to have tea with the first lady was one of those events you don’t pass up.

  Betty was nearly eight months pregnant, and as luck would have it, the day of the tea party, the weather was miserable. Rainy, cold—the kind of weather in which she would have preferred to stay home reading a good book. But having never met Mrs. Truman before, and not knowing if there would ever be another opportunity, Betty was determined to go. There was no parking available at Blair House, and to take a taxi the entire way would have been far too expensive, so Betty drove downtown, parked her car in a garage, and hailed a taxi to take her the last few blocks to Pennsylvania Avenue.

  Once inside, Betty got into the receiving line, waiting her turn to be introduced. As she approached the first lady, Betty said, “Oh, Mrs. Truman, it’s so nice of you to have us. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon.”

  Looking at Betty’s protruding belly, her hair damp and flattened by the rain, Mrs. Truman said, “Heavens, it’s you who are nice to come out in such terrible weather.”

  Her reaction so surprised Betty—that a first lady could stay so humble—and “with that, she went straight to my heart,” Betty would later recall. It was a fond memory, and a lesson in grace and sincerity, that would stay with her.

  Not long thereafter, on March 14, 1950, several weeks overdue, Betty delivered a healthy, seven-pound, six-ounce baby boy. “He was nice and fat,” Betty wrote. Both she and Jerry were ecstatic with their firstborn child.

  They had discussed names beforehand, and while Betty wanted another Gerald Ford, Jerry didn’t like the idea of having a “junior,” remembering the embarrassment he’d felt when his mother called him Junie, so they compromised and named their son Michael Gerald Ford.

  A couple of weeks after Mike’s birth, Betty received a letter from her brother Bill. Word of the baby was “the most wonderful news of all,” he wrote. “Even the children are thrilled to pieces as we are over the thought of Mike.” Bill wrote that his children, Bonnie and Stevie, “talk about him as if they were three old pals. Stevie asked this morning, ‘When will Mike get to be president?’

  “I asked why, and he replied, ‘Well, he lives in Washington, and his dad’s a congressman.’ So,” the letter went on, “I’m passing that question along to you, Betty and Jerry, for an answer to Steve’s question. I’m sure with two such fine parents, Stevie is not far from the right in presuming that your son will be president someday.”

  Betty saved the letter to show Mike when he got older, just in case his cousin’s prediction came true.

  Shortly after moving to the apartment on Q Street, the Fords had hired a woman named Ida to help with the housekeeping. She came in once a week to clean and iron, but while Betty was away in Michigan, Ida found a full-time job at a school and asked Jerry if her daughter-in-law Clara could take her place.

  “Clara was like an angel that came into our lives,” Betty would say. With the baby imminent, and not wanting to risk losing Clara, the Fords offered her a full-time position working eight to five, Monday through Friday.

  Clara Boswell Powell was forty-one years old when she first began working for the Fords. She and her husband, Raymond, had no children of their own, and when Mike was born, Clara was just as crazy about the baby as his parents were. She came to work wearing a uniform of a white dress, always freshly cleaned and pressed, and always with a smile that shined as bright as her heart. Nothing seemed to rattle her—like the time she was spoon-feeding Mike, and he spewed a mouthful of mashed red baby food beets all over her white dress; she just laughed and told Betty there was no need to buy beets for this one anymore. She knew instinctively what babies needed, and she treated Mike just like he was her own. Before you knew it, Clara was part of the family.

  She talked to little Mike as she bathed, fed, and changed him, and one day, when the baby was “just beginning to giggle and grr,” Jerry walked in. Clara held up the baby, and as Mike turned to his father, recognizing him with wide eyes and a happy gurgle, Clara said, “That’s right, talk to your dad, because some of these days he’s going to be president.”

  Jerry laughed. He had absolutely no drive or desire to be president. It was such a peculiar thing for her to say.

  Having Clara to help with the baby and the housework allowed Betty to continue with the social activities that were required of her as a congressman’s wife. She became very active with the Congressional Club, an exclusive club for the spouses of House and Senate members, Supreme Court justices, and Cabinet members. In 1950, 98 percent of those positions were held by men, so the Congressional Club was made up purely of wives. There were bridge groups and book clubs, and on Tuesdays, they went to the Red Cross to roll bandages and assemble care packages.

  At the book club meetings, someone would stand before the group and give a review of a book she’d read. When it came Betty’s turn, she was petrified. First, she didn’t know what book to choose, so she called a friend in Grand Rapids for advice.

  “What’s new?” she asked. “What book should I read?”

  Her friend suggested a popular book at the time, Popcorn on the Ginza, by Lucy Herndon Crockett. Written by an American woman who had spent eighteen months working with the Red Cross in postwar Japan, the book explored many topical subjects, including the emancipation of Japanese women. It was perfect. But when Betty had to stand up in front of the group and present her review, she was terrified. So many of the other wives were well educated, and now Betty regretted that she hadn’t gone to college.

  To overcome her self-consciousness, s
he rationalized, “If I acted smart, and looked smart, maybe strangers would think I was smart.”

  John Milanowski, an attorney friend from Grand Rapids whom Jerry had hired to be his administrative assistant, recalled rehearsing with Mrs. Ford before her presentation.

  “She was terribly nervous, as she wanted to make a good impression for her husband’s sake. I told her not to worry about it and that her biggest asset to Jerry was being a good wife and mother. Other things were secondary.”

  “Just articulate what you are yourself, and you’ll be effective,” Milanowski told her.

  Scared as she was, Betty got up in front of the group and gave her report. It was a big step for her, one she would remember as “a small act of courage.” Hoping to quell her fears and improve her confidence, when the Congressional Club offered a public speaking course, she signed right up. The techniques and information she learned would turn out to be very useful.

  Jerry and Betty were eager to add to their family, and soon Betty was pregnant again. Their joy turned to sadness and worry when she miscarried around the time Mike was seven months old. The miscarriage prompted them to find a new apartment: one on the ground floor, to avoid Betty’s having to go up and down stairs, and with an outdoor space for Michael to play.

  Several congressmen and their families, including Dick and Pat Nixon—who would become close friends of the Fords—lived in a large planned development called Parkfairfax, just across the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia. Parkfairfax was a series of two- and three-story red brick colonial apartment buildings scattered among nearly 150 beautifully landscaped acres of winding roads, walking paths, and gently sloping hills. The buildings were designed in a U shape to create a sense of community and open space for the residents, and being in the “suburbs,” the rents were more affordable than those in the District of Columbia. There were strict rules for residents: only married couples and families were allowed, no dogs or cats permitted, and tenants could grow only flowers, not vegetables. In June 1951 a garden-level apartment at 1521 Mount Eagle Place became available, and the Fords moved in.

  The two-bedroom, one-bath apartment was situated at the end of the building, and not only did it have nearly twice the space as their last apartment, but also it opened to an enormous patio where Mike could play and they could host friends for backyard barbecues. On clear days, you could see the Washington Monument off in the distance.

  No sooner had the curtains been hung and the boxes unpacked than Betty discovered she was pregnant again. Fearful of another miscarriage, she was careful with her activities. In those days, it was believed that overexertion and even mild exercise could be dangerous for pregnant women.

  At Christmas, Jerry, Betty—who was about seven months pregnant—and fifteen-month-old Mike went “home” to Grand Rapids. As often happens when families get together around the holidays, one person gets sick and passes it around. Just as they were getting ready to return to Washington, Mike came down with a cold and a bad ear infection. The night before they were to leave, he was in such pain, he wouldn’t stop crying. Jerry and Betty stayed up all night, taking turns walking with him. By morning, everyone was exhausted, and the thought of driving fifteen hours with a miserable baby was almost unbearable. They called the doctor, who gave them some medicine for Mike and confirmed that it would be all right if Betty flew home with him.

  So, they booked a flight for Betty and Mike, while Jerry piled all the luggage, toys, and presents into the car and headed east, planning to pick them up at the airport when they arrived that night. It all worked out, but by the time they finally got back to their apartment in Alexandria, it was ten o’clock. Jerry, having driven over six hundred miles straight through, was bleary eyed, and Betty, seven months pregnant, having traveled alone with a sick baby, was completely frazzled. She tucked Mike into his crib, set up a vaporizer with hot water and a dollop of Vicks VapoRub, and then collapsed onto the living room sofa.

  “Let me fix you something to eat,” Jerry offered.

  “All I want,” she said, “is a martini and a sandwich. Give me peanut butter, anything; I don’t care.”

  Jerry made her a drink—this was prior to the known health risks of drinking alcohol during pregnancy—and then fixed her a peanut butter sandwich. There was an unusual taste to the sandwich, a sort of menthol flavor, but Betty was so tired, she ate it and didn’t say anything. Just before she went to bed, she took her empty glass and plate into the kitchen. Laying on the counter was a knife, the peanut butter, and the jar of Vicks VapoRub.

  The baby was due ten days before Mike’s second birthday, but this one, too, was reluctant to arrive as scheduled. Finally, two days after Mike’s birthday, on March 16, 1952, the Fords welcomed another boy to the family. They named him John Gardner Ford—Gardner to honor Jerry’s mother Dorothy’s maiden name—and they would call him Jack.

  With two boys exactly two years apart, those early days were often chaotic. Mike was a climber—“Once I took him to visit somebody and turned around, and there he was on top of the piano,” Betty recalled—and, much to her dismay, gave up his naps at an early age. She’d be changing Jack’s diapers and hear loud clanging from the kitchen one minute as Mike hauled out all the pots and pans, and then the next minute it would be dead silent. That’s when she knew there was trouble. One day he’d gotten into her makeup and fur scarves, and she came in to see that he’d painted lipstick on all the little mouths of the foxes and minks.

  Meanwhile, her husband had to run for reelection every two years. He easily won his first reelection campaign in 1950 with 66 percent of the vote, and in the short time he’d been in Washington, Jerry Ford had gained popularity and influence in the House of Representatives. In 1952 he was one of eighteen young Republican congressmen who urged General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president. With two small children at home, Betty couldn’t possibly travel back and forth to Michigan with Jerry to campaign on a regular basis, but when Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower made a stop in Grand Rapids that October, Betty flew back to join Jerry in welcoming the popular presidential candidate.

  It was a heady experience for Betty as she and Jerry rode with the Eisenhowers in a convertible through their hometown, with thousands of people lining the streets, cheering. A month later, Jerry again won his district with 66 percent of the vote, and Dwight D. Eisenhower crushed Democrat Adlai Stevenson II, the governor of Illinois, to become the thirty-fourth president of the United States.

  After Jerry had won his third election, Betty came to the realization that her husband planned to stay in Congress, and they were not going back to Michigan.

  When they’d first arrived in Washington, Betty was prepared to be there for the two-year term, but now, six years later, she was “wall to wall with tricycles and wagons and toys” and no place for anyone to move. She and Jerry had lawyer friends back in Grand Rapids who were doing far better financially, and while there may have been some envy, by this point, Betty realized politics was in Jerry’s blood. He loved every minute of it, and she wasn’t going to stop him.

  When it came to the household, however, she held the power, and she put her foot down. “If you are going to run for Congress again,” Betty said, “we have got to buy or build or rent a house.”

  Just two and a half miles away from Parkfairfax sat a tract of land that was being developed with brand-new homes. Not only would it be an easy commute for Jerry, but it was close to their church, Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill, and Douglas MacArthur Elementary School, one of the best in the district, was nearby. They bought a plot for a token $10 and signed a deal with the developer to build a house for $34,000. The mortgage payment of $138.60 a month, plus taxes, was within their means on Jerry’s $15,000 annual salary, but Betty would have to keep to a tight budget. By getting in pre-construction, Betty could add personal touches and, after so many years of moving from one apartment to the next, she was filled with excitement to finally have a home in which to raise their family.

  By
this point, with two little boys scampering underfoot, Betty’s dreams of becoming a dancer were long gone, and the fortune teller’s prediction about meeting kings and queens was all but forgotten. Just eight miles away, however, was a house that was indeed frequented by royal guests from all over the world, and to the Secret Service who protected the ever-changing occupants, the house was codenamed “Crown.”

  No one could predict what would happen nearly two decades later—it was beyond foresight or comprehension—but it is ironic that the home the Fords built in Alexandria was number 514 on a street named Crown View Drive.

  Betty and Jerry worked with the developer to design the split-level, four-bedroom brick house so it would suit their family’s casual lifestyle. The front door opened to a foyer that branched out to the rest of the house, with beautiful hardwood flooring connecting all the rooms. Just off the entry hall was a large, sunny living room that had a brick fireplace and two tall windows affording a clear view of the street. The kitchen faced the back of the house, with a window over the sink so Betty could keep an eye on the children, and a back door that made for easy access to the large yard. The kitchen was the heart of the home, and in a nod to their Michigan roots, they had the cabinets and wood paneling custom-made in dark knotty pine from Grand Rapids. There was no formal dining room—Betty did not anticipate entertaining guests for formal sit-down dinners—instead, they had a small breakfast room adjacent to the kitchen with a round table and chairs for the family to share meals together.

  A hallway off the kitchen led to a powder room on one side and the two-car garage on the other, with a staircase that led upstairs to four bedrooms. The master bedroom was located over the garage, with big picture windows looking out over the backyard. It had its own small bathroom, and then down the hall was another bathroom shared by three additional bedrooms. A laundry chute made it easy for Betty to toss the never-ending dirty clothes straight to the basement where the washing machine and dryer were installed. It was a good-sized house—it seemed like a mansion compared with the cramped apartment in which they’d been living—and Betty slowly filled it with comfortable but pretty furnishings in her favorite colors of blue and green.