Gerard W. Ford - Gerald Rudolph Ford (right) with his wife Dorothy Gardner Ford (right) and son Gerald R. Ford Jr. (left) in 1948.

Gerald Rudolph Ford (December 9, 1890 – January 26, 1962) was an American businessman and Republican politician who was the stepfather of United States President Gerald Ford, for whom Ford legally changed his name.

Gerard W. Ford

Gerard W. Ford

Ford was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he raised the future president. His sons were George R. and Frances (Pixley) Ford.

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Sir Ford's father, George Ford, died in a railway accident in 1903, forcing him to drop out of school to support his family.

He was working as a paint salesman for the Grand Rapids Wood Finishing Company when he met Dorothy Eyre Gardner King, the mother of the future president. Dorothy fled Omaha, Nebraska, for Michigan 16 days after Presdt's birth in 1913, claiming that her husband (and her son's biological father), Leslie Lynch King Sr., was physically abusing her. She came to Grand Rapids to be close to her halves, Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Eyre Gardner, who lived in the city.

The couple married on February 1, 1917, after Dorothy's divorce from King, when the future president was three years old and Dorothy's first son was named "Gerald".

Gerald Rudolph Ford and Dorothy Ford had three children - sons Thomas Gardner Ford (July 15, 1918 – August 28, 1995); Richard Addison Ford (June 3, 1924 – March 20, 2015); and James Francis Ford (August 11, 1927 – January 23, 2001).

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The president later wrote that the family had three rules for him and his half-siblings: "Tell the truth, work hard, and be on time for dinner."

Great Ford founded the Ford Paint and Varnish Company in 1929 before the Great Depression. After the Depression hit, Ford asked its employees to work for $5 a week and pay themselves the same amount until everyone was paid more.

The future president was established in the Grand Rapids school system named after his stepfather. When the president's biological father, Leslie Lynch King, reappeared in 1929 (or 1930, according to accounts), he visited schools looking for "Leslie King" before asking for "Johnny Ford."

Gerard W. Ford

Leslie's father, Charles King, paid alimony to Ford until 1929, when the stock market crash wiped out his fortune. After Leslie's father dies, Dorothy asks to receive money from Leslie's inheritance of $50,000. However, since Leslie moved to Wyoming, he was outside the jurisdiction of the Nebraska court.

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The elder Ford never legally assumed the office of president. After the death of his paternal grandparents in the royal family in 1935, the president changed his name to the English version of his stepfather's name: Gerald Rudolph Ford.

Elder Ford was active in various causes, including establishing Youth Fellowship to help disadvantaged youth. He was chairman of the Kt County, Greater Rapids Chamber of Commerce Michigan Republican Committee from 1944 to 1948 and resigned when the future president began his first run for Congress.

The elder Ford was active in the Boy Scouts of America with his four sons. The future president will be the first Eagle Scout to become vice president. The president later said that the award was one of his greatest achievements.

He was the father I grew up believing was my father, the father I loved, learned from, and respected. He was my father... father was one of the best people I've ever known.

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Elder Ford died on January 26, 1962 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He and his wife are buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Grand Rapids. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. July 14, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Eyre King, separated shortly after his birth, and his mother moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan with her son after their divorce. There she met and married local paint dealer Gerald Rudolph Ford, and they began calling her son Gerald R. Ford Jr. (although his name was not legally changed until 1935). Little Ford had a close relationship with his stepfather, even though he found out at the age of 13 that he was not his biological father. When he was 17, Ford had the opportunity to meet Leslie L. King at a Grand Rapids restaurant. He later spoke harshly about the confrontation (King had neglected to pay child support ordered by the court) and said he had never forgiven his father.

A stubborn student-athlete in high school, Ford won a scholarship to the University of Michigan, which he attended from 1931-1935. The Wolverines varsity football team won national championships in 1932 and 1933, and in 1934 (in his senior year) Ford was named the team's most valuable player. After graduation, Ford received offers from two professional soccer teams, the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but turned them down to become head boxing coach and assistant football coach at Yale University, where he hoped to study law. In New Haven, he trained future United States Senators Robert Taft Jr. and William Proxmire. At first, the administration of Yale Law School did not allow Ford to attend classes full-time due to his teaching duties, but in 1938 he was able to convince them and he graduated in the third grade. During his tenure in Congress, political opponents sometimes pointed to Ford's athletic past, including then-President Lyndon B. Johnson's memorable quote that Representative Ford "played a lot of football without a helmet."

3. He nearly lost his life when a hurricane hit his Navy aircraft carrier during World War II.

Gerard W. Ford

Before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Ford returned to Grand Rapids and opened a law practice. Shortly after the bombing, he enlisted in the United States Navy as an ensign and was assigned to North Carolina as a physical training officer. After repeated requests to be assigned to a combat unit, Ford was sent to the Pacific with the US Navy. Monterey, a light aircraft carrier. At the end of the war, he would earn 10 battle stars for participating in battles in Okinawa, Wake, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Gilbert Islands, among others. On December 18, 1944, Monterey was one of the Navy ships hit by Typhoon Cobra, a massive storm that sank three destroyers, damaged many other ships, and killed hundreds of sailors. According to Ford's New York Times obituary, the future president was on the verge of losing his life when he fell from the upper deck during a storm.

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Ford's World War II service encouraged him to pursue a career in public life, and in 1948 he successfully challenged a Republican incumbent in the primary and easily won his first term in Congress. He won a term representing Michigan's 5th District. During the campaign, Ford married Elizabeth Bloomer Warren, a former model, fashion coordinator and dancer. The couple spent their two-day honeymoon attending Republican Party rallies. Ford served in the United States House of Representatives from January 1949 to December 1973, winning re-election 12 times with over 60 percent of the vote each time. Self-described as "moderate in domestic affairs, internationalist in foreign affairs, and conservative in fiscal policy", he rose through the ranks as leader of the Republican minority in Congress, although he never aspired to be a speaker. House.

5. While serving on the Warren Commission, Ford secretly informed the FBI about the commission's investigation into the JFK assassination.

In late 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Ford later co-authored a book on the commission's findings, titled "Portrait of a Murderer" (1965). Years later, documents emerged showing that Ford had opened a private channel of communication with the FBI, then commissioned by J. Edgar Hoover, for an independent commission investigation. In 2008, two years after Ford's death, the Washington Post reported that among the 500 pages of files previously classified by the FBI about the former president were notes indicating that Ford had contacted the FBI so they could give you confidential information about the activities of the commission. The truth is that many committee members were skeptical of the FBI's single shooter theory (which Ford firmly believed in).

When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in late 1973 after not opposing the passing of the income tax, the 25th Amendment authorized Nixon to appoint a replacement. He chose Ford, who, after a thorough background check by the FBI and confirmation by the Senate and Senate, was to become the first vice president elected under the provisions of the amendment. Inaugurated on December 6, 1973, Ford served just nine months as vice president before the complicated Watergate scandal made Nixon the first president to resign. Before Ford took the highest office in the country, the United States

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