President Gerald R. Ford
Ford was the first vice president chosen under the Twenty-fifth Amendment. In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, he succeeded the first president to ever resign from the presidency.
Ford was born Leslie King Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska on July 14, 1913, to a businessman and his wife Dorothy. Escaping her husband Leslie King Sr.'s physical abuse and battery, Dorothy divorced King and was subsequently remarried to Gerald Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who later gave his name to his stepson. The young Ford starred on the University of Michigan football team, then went to Yale, where he served as assistant coach while earning his law degree.
During World War II he attained the rank of lieutenant commander in the Navy. After the war he returned to Grand Rapids, where he practiced law, and entered Republican politics. A few weeks before his election to Congress in 1948, he married Betty Bloomer. They had four children: Michael, Jack, Steven, and Susan.
Serving 25 years in the House, Ford had a reputation for integrity, openness, and comity that moved his Republican colleagues to elect him their leader in 1965. His popularity in Congress was the central reason Richard Nixon chose him to succeed the resigned Vice President Spiro Agnew.
Read President Gerald R. Ford’s Essays
Not long before his own death, President Ford called his good friend President Carter and asked if he would deliver a eulogy at Ford’s funeral. Carter agreed so long as Ford returned the favor.