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Gerald Ford leaves Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, with his new wife, the former Elizabeth (Betty) Bloomer, October 15, 1948.
Brother Ford was unable to attend the 2006 DKE Convention in New Orleans. However, he was one of several men who sent welcoming letters to be read to attendees at the banquet. (click letter for larger version)
The Omicron Shant, now the headquarters of DKE International. |
Brother Gerald R. Ford, Jr., Omicron '35 Remembered
The Omicron house of the 1930s must have been the jock house. Grace asked who was contributing to this Deke remembrance of Brother Ford, and after complementing Ford’s football prowess as Earl Townsend had, he said Earl and his brother Jake were a great duo.
“Jake Townsend was a celebrated basketball player,” he said. “There was a question about whether he, or some player at Stanford, was the finest player in the country at the time.”
Earl, however, who spent his career as an attorney in the Indianapolis firm Townsend & Townsend, is enshrined in Indiana’s Basketball Hall of Fame, set a Michigan single-game scoring record, and was captain of the Wolverine team his senior year. All of this while maintaining a straight-A average. So maybe the Omicron men of the ‘30s were the brain house. Without question, they all turned out well.
“Tommy Ford was in the house. He was a year behind me. And Jerry was in and out of the house because he would come to see Tommy,” Grace said. “I knew both Jerry’s half-brothers, Tom and Dick, much better than I knew Jerry,” he said. “Tom was a Deke and went on to serve in the Michigan legislature.”
Not only did Jim Grace know Ford’s half-brothers, he knew Ford’s wife-to-be.
“I met Betty Bloomer through an honorary fraternity in high school. One year my chapter went to Grand Rapids, and I met Betty there. She and I went out on a date. It was a Friday, and it was our only date. She already had another scheduled for Saturday,” Grace chuckled.
“She got the better man. Jerry was a fine man,” Grace said. Ford married Elizabeth Bloomer on October 15, 1948, at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids. She was a department-store fashion consultant who had been a John Robert Powers fashion model and a dancer in the auxiliary troupe of the Martha Graham Dance Company.
At the time of his engagement, Ford was campaigning for what would be his first of 13 terms, and 24 years, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The wedding was delayed until shortly before the election, because, as The New York Times reported in a 1974 profile of Betty Ford, “Jerry was running for Congress.” Part of Omicron lore, although it can’t be confirmed, is that the newlywed Fords spent part of their brief honeymoon in Ann Arbor, at the DKE House.
The Fords had four children: Michael Gerald Ford (born 1950), John Gardner Ford (a.k.a. Jack, born 1952), Steven Meigs Ford (born 1956), and Susan Elizabeth Ford (born 1957). None of Ford’s three sons are Dekes.
Jim Grace remembered seeing Jerry in 1947. “He was still a bachelor then, and he was a friend of a couple Omicron Dekes named Jack Beckwith and Phil Vanzile. They had been in the chapter around the same time. I ran into Jack on a train, and he invited me to his home west of Chicago. The four of us got together there. We played golf at the Chicago Country Club. It was a fantastic club, and we had a great weekend. Those guys were older, and I was grateful to have been invited.” There’s more to this weekend story, but Grace is too much of a gentleman, and too respectful of the President, to tell it. Beckwith later was part of the Ford wedding party, serving as Best Man.
Grace did recall a story from his active chapter days that later involved Ford. “Joe Henshaw was a Deke in the Class of ’38. During his undergrad career,” Grace said, “all Joe did was stand at the base of the library steps and promote the latest Deke party. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and he later went on to New York and had a seat on the Stock Exchange, so don’t get me wrong, the guy was sharp.
“When Ford was Vice President, he came back to Ann Arbor to address the graduating class. Those of us from his era were invited to the Deke Shant to greet him afterward. The courtyard, as you go in, was full of Secret Service. They were swarming the place. What we didn’t know at that time, but clearly the Secret Service did, was that Ford soon was going to be President.
“We went up the stairs and into the room, and everyone was concerned about how to address him. As he came up the stairs, who was at his elbow? Joe Henshaw. We ended up calling Jerry ‘Mr. Vice President.’ And my point is that Joe Henshaw never missed a party.”
A lifelong member of the Republican Party, Ford’s political career as the only unelected U.S. Vice President and President is the stuff of trivia games.
He was a member of the House of Representatives for 24 years, holding the Grand Rapids congressional district seat from 1949 to 1973. Appointed to the House Appropriations Committee two years after being elected, he was a prominent member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Ford described his philosophy as “a moderate in domestic affairs, an internationalist in foreign affairs, and a conservative in fiscal policy.”
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