Betty Ford

For a time, it was unclear whether Gerald Ford shared his wife's pro-choice viewpoint. However, in December 1999, he told interviewer Larry King that he, too, was pro-choice and had been criticized for that stance by conservative forces within the Republican Party.

Weeks after Ford became First Lady, she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer on September 28, 1974, after being diagnosed with the disease. Ford decided to be open about her cancer because "There had been so much cover-up during Watergate that we wanted to be sure there would be no cover-up in the Ford administration" Her openness about her illness raised the visibility of a disease that Americans had previously been reluctant to talk about. "When other women have this same operation, it doesn't make any headlines," she told Time. "But the fact that I was the wife of the President put it in headlines and brought before the public this particular experience I was going through. It made a lot of women realize that it could happen to them. I'm sure I've saved at least one person — maybe more." Further amplifying the public awareness of breast cancer were reports that several weeks after Ford's cancer surgery, Happy Rockefeller, the wife of vice president Nelson Rockefeller, also underwent a mastectomy. The spike in women self-examining after Ford went public with the diagnosis led to an increase in reported cases of breast cancer, a phenomenon known as the "Betty Ford blip". Read Less

Rosalynn Carter, Cokie Roberts and Geoffrey Mason, a member of the Board of the Betty Ford Center delivered eulogies.

On July 13, her casket was flown to Grand Rapids where it lay in repose at the Gerald Ford Museum overnight.

On July 14, a second service was held at Grace Episcopal Church with eulogies given by Lynne Cheney, former Ford Museum director Richard Norton Smith and son, Steven. In attendance were former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former first lady Barbara Bush. In her remarks, Mrs. Cheney noted that July 14 would have been Gerald Ford's 98th birthday. After the service, she was buried next to her husband on the museum grounds. Read Less