By allowing her private struggles to become public, this woman saved countless lives and changed the way society dealt with taboo issues.

Born in Chicago in 1918, Elizabeth Anne “Betty” Bloomer Ford spent her childhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she studied dance beginning at age 8. After high school, she pursued further study, choosing a career in modern dance. For a while, Betty was a member of a prestigious dance troupe in New York City, where she also worked as a fashion model. She returned to Grand Rapid to be near her family. There she worked at a department store as a fashion coordinator and started a dance group of her own, even teaching dance to handicapped children. 

At age 24, she married William Warren, though the couple would divorce five years later on grounds of incompatibility. Not long after her divorce, Betty met and started dating Gerald R. Ford, Jr., the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life. During his campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, they married in 1948. After his election, they spent the next three decades in Washington, D.C., where Betty gave birth to their four children. She efficiently ran their home while her husband performed his political duties. In the 1960s, doctors prescribed pain medicine to help with her physical ailments. Her addiction to these drugs would be a private struggle for the next decade. 

It’s said that Betty never expected to be First Lady, and the way she arrived at the office would support that. Her husband was still serving in the House of Representatives when President Richard M. Nixon’s vice president resigned in 1973. Nixon appointed Gerald as the replacement VP. Then, less than a year later amidst the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned, elevating Betty’s husband to the presidency, making her the First Lady.

Betty felt strongly that the public sought honesty and openness from public officials. Just weeks after moving into the White House, doctors performed a mastectomy to remove breast cancer. Betty and her husband choose to make this information public. She became outspoken in her efforts to spread awareness about the disease in a time when such private matters were not discussed. Her ability to talk about it destigmatized breast cancer and led women all over the country to seek preventative exams. 

As First Lady, she tried to be both down-to-earth and independent. Speaking to reporters after moving into the White House, Betty surprised the country with the news that her political stances did not match her husband’s. She supported abortion rights as well as the Equal Rights Amendment, which was up for ratification at that time. At her urging, President Ford declared International Women’s Year in 1975, which went along with a UN resolution. She spoke on 60 Minutes, a popular news program, about many topics, including premarital sex and their teenage daughter. Betty became more popular than ever and was named one of Time magazine’s Women of the Year in 1976. 

Then her husband was defeated in his bid for re-election. Back at home, which was now at a ranch in California, Betty’s abuse of pain medication and alcohol continued. Her family confronted her, and she checked into a rehabilitation facility in 1978. Her successful treatment prompted Betty to co-found the Betty Ford Clinic in 1982 to help those dealing with drug and alcohol addictions. 

For the rest of her life, Betty spoke out on issues that were important to her: addiction treatment, gender equality, women’s health care, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. She served on the board of directors for the Betty Ford Clinic until 2005. President George H.W. Bush honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she and her husband were awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Betty was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She wrote two memoirs about her rehab experience. Read more about her in the book on my shelf here. This is an affiliate link; thank you for supporting my work.