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Ford wrote the preface to DKE’s 150th Anniversary book. (click photo for larger view)
Ford remained a regular visitor to the Omicron chapter house throughout his life. Here, the actives take advantage of a photo opp on the front lawn.
Brandy Bakers / The Detroit News Former President Ford celebrates his 90th birthday at a “Hometown Celebration” in front of the museum that bears his name in Grand Rapids on July 30, 2003.
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Brother Gerald R. Ford, Jr., Omicron '35 Remembered
In 1963, Republican members of the House elected him Minority Leader. Later, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission, a special task force set up to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
During the eight years (1965–1973) he served as Minority Leader, Ford won many friends in the House because of his fair leadership and inoffensive personality. On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. According to The New York Times, “Nixon sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement. The advice was unanimous. ‘We gave Nixon no choice but Ford,’ House Speaker Carl Albert recalled later.”
When Ford was nominated to take Agnew’s position, it was the first time the vice-presidential vacancy provision of the 25th Amendment had been implemented. The Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Ford, and the House confirmed him 387 to 35.
Following Ford’s appointment, the Watergate investigation continued until Chief of Staff Alexander Haig told Ford that “smoking gun” evidence had been found, leaving little doubt that President Nixon had been a part of the Watergate cover-up.
At the time, the Fords were living in suburban Virginia, waiting for their expected move into the newly designated vice president’s residence in Washington. However, “Al Haig asked to come over and see me,” Ford later related, “to tell me that there would be a new tape released, and he said the evidence in there was devastating and there probably would be either an impeachment or a resignation.
“And he said, ‘I’m just warning you that you’ve got to be prepared, that things might change dramatically and you could become president.’ And I said, ‘Betty, I don’t think we’re ever going to live in the vice president’s house.’”
When President Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, Ford assumed the presidency. Immediately after taking the oath of office in the East Room of the White House, he spoke to the assembled audience in a speech broadcast live to the nation. Ford noted the peculiarity of his position, saying “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers.”
“Jerry was a modest guy,” Jim Grace said. “When he was selected as Vice President, he lived in Alexandria, Virginia, and reporters descended on his house. They all asked about his career, about Michigan and Yale, and one said ‘I understand you’re left-handed.’ Later Jerry commented, ‘they had to find something wrong.’”
Fixing things wrong at the Deke House was one of Ford’s responsibilities as Omicron house manager. Art Harwood, Omicron ’38, said Ford did a good job in that role. “The meals were only a dollar a day, so getting board wasn’t that much,” Harwood said as he thought back about his days in the Deke House at 1912 Geddes.
“Jerry had a little desk on the balcony on the second story,” he said. “That’s where the house manager worked. I was doing some broadcasting at school, and we only had two meals on Sundays. I had some questions about whether I could pay the dollar a day, and I remember one Sunday when Jerry said ‘We can cancel it for the day. Go get a malted.’ That meant a lot to me.”
The Omicron Dekes in the ‘30s had a Saturday night chapter meeting in the Shant. “We would march back to the house singing the Deke Song at 10 or 11 at night,” Harwood said. “Of course, that interfered with dating, but the guys weren’t supposed to have anything to do with girls then anyway.
DKE Executive Director David Easlick, Omicron ’69, recalled a story Ford told him during a visit to Ford’s Rancho Mirage, California, home. “Well after his Presidential days, he visited Ann Arbor. Mexico’s President Padilla also was visiting the University, and Ford took him to the Shant. He peered over the wall and reminisced, telling the Mexican President about climbing the wall as a college kid in order to pay homage.” It’s likely the story involved late-night marches back to the Deke House, singing songs we all remember bits and pieces of.
Not all Deke stories about Brother Jerry Ford are rooted in the 1930s. Lin Hanson, Omicron ’59, and a member of the DKE International Board of Directors, met Ford for the first time when he was an undergrad.
“In those days,” Hanson said, “Omicron had an annual alumni banquet the night before Thanksgiving at the Detroit Club in downtown Detroit. Ford was a great man. He always supported Omicron. He’d come to that banquet every year. Not as a speaker. He was a regular attendee like everyone else, although we all were there in tuxedos.
“When we renovated the Shant in 2005 for the second time, we had every kind of effort you could think of to raise money. We had all this old Shant furniture that had been in storage for years. It was scratched up, moldy, worn out stuff, and we needed $20,000 to spiff it up, and he contributed,” Hanson said of Ford.
“I went back and asked for an autographed copy of his biography, and he was delighted to oblige. And here’s where the nature of those Dutchmen from Western Michigan comes into play. He had two conditions: I had to buy the book and send it to him, and I had to enclose a stamped return envelope,” Hanson laughed.
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