Betty Ford was born on April 8, 1918 in Chicago. She lived in Denver and Chicago and then moved to Grand Rapids when she was 2 years old. Her father was William S. Bloomer who working for the Royal Rubber Company and traveled, trying to get companies to buy their products. Her mother was Hortense Neahr Bloomer who constantly wrote letters to her husband. She had two older brothers, Bill and Bob. Bill was 7 years older and Bob was 5 years older. Every summer they went up to their cottage at Whitefish Lake. They also went up on weekends and had many friends over.
She played the piccolo, piano, and took dance lessons. She was also a tomboy and wanted to play sports with her brothers and their friends. In 1929 when the stock market crashed they lost a lot of money and had to cut back on things. She had to help around the house more. When she was fourteen she was confirmed an Episcopalian. Her father was a Christian Scientist and her mother was an Episcopalian. She went to high school at Central High in Grand Rapids. Every day after school she went straight to her dance lessons. On Saturday afternoons she gave ancing lessons for 50 cents. When she was 16 her father died of carbon monoxide poisoning while working on his car.
Things got a little bit rougher because of the Great Depression. Then in 1936 she graduated from Central High. When she was 18 and 19 she went to Bennington School of Dance. She was happy because she was able to dance 8 hours a day. After Bennington, she went to New York with her room mate Natalie Harris. They settled in a one bedroom apartment on Sixth Avenue. They walked to Martha Grahams studio on Fifth Avenue. They only got paid $10 a concert so hey had to get jobs during the day and take the dancing lessons at night. She went back to Grand Rapids and started her own dance group. She married Bill Warren and divorced him 5 years later.
She got a job at Herpolsheimers as the fashion coordinator. On October 15, 1948 she married Gerald R. Ford. He ran for Congress and the election took place on November 2 and he won a seat in the House of Representatives. He was sworn in 1949. They had 3 sons, Mike on March 14, 1950, Jack on March 16, and Steve on May 19, 1956. Then Susan was born in 1957. On January 20, 1973 Gerald Ford ecame Nixons vice president. Then on August 9, 1974 he became President after Nixons resignation. Betty Ford went for her check up at the National Naval Medical Center. They found that she had breast cancer. and she went to the hospital 2 days later. They removed the tumor, put her on chemotherapy, and gave her various pills. She worked for womens rights and the rights of homosexuals. She was interviewed several times on 60 Minutes on CBS. She also visited hospitals. She also visited children with disabilities. There were two assassination attempts on
Gerald Fords life and Betty Ford supported gun control after that. On January 27, 1977 they left the white house. Betty Ford was checked into the Long Beach Naval Hospitals Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation. She was an alcoholic and the alcohol on top of the pills and medication made it worse for her. She is now sober. People started to send her mail about their addictions and asked for advice. She started to travel around and talk about alcoholism and drug abuse. She has also written a book called A Glad Awakening which is about her addiction and other peoples addictions. She also talks about how hard it was and ow when she signed up at the Long Beach Naval Hospitals Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation center that she had no idea how hard it would really be to sober up.
On October 3,1982 they dedicated the Betty Ford Center to help drug addicts and alcoholics recover from their addictions. Since then, they have helped many people recover from their addictions. Shortly before he died, Kurt Cobain checking in for help with his addiction to heroin. I believe that her greatest accomplishment was that she has helped people who had the same trouble as she did and has helped many people recover from their addictions.
