Funeral Plans Announced for Former President Gerald R. Ford (and Official Tribute Website)

AP via San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Wednesday, December 27, 2006 | Jeff Wilson

[nutmeg]

Thanks for this thread, kristinn. Rest in peace, President Ford....

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Schedule of funeral plans for President Ford - WOOD-TV - Grand Rapids, MI

Funeral plans for President Ford (all times are local [Eastern time zone]):

Friday, Dec. 29:

-- 12:20 p.m., President Ford's casket arrives at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, Calif. Mrs. Ford and the family will have a private prayer service.
-- 1:15 p.m., close friends and guests will arrive at St. Margaret's for private visitation. The Ford family will return to their residence.
-- 4:20 p.m., public repose begins at St. Margaret's. The church will remain open until 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. on Saturday.
  
Saturday, Dec. 30:

-- 9 a.m., departure ceremony from St. Margaret's.
-- 9:40 a.m., Ford's body leaves St. Margaret's for Washington, D.C.
-- 5:20 p.m., Ford's body arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, traveling to the U.S. Capitol. The motorcade will pause at the World War II Memorial.
-- 6:20 p.m., the casket will be carried up the east steps of the Capitol to the door of the House of Representatives.
-- 7 p.m., state funeral begins in the Capitol Rotunda.
-- 8:20 p.m., Ford's body lies in state.
  
Sunday, Dec. 31, and Monday, Jan. 1:

-- Ford's body continues in state.
  
Tuesday, Jan. 2:

-- 8:30 a.m., the casket is moved from the Rotunda to the U.S. Senate door for a period of repose.
-- 9:15 a.m., departure ceremony on the east steps of the U.S. Senate.
-- 10 a.m., Ford's casket arrives at Washington National Cathedral.
-- 10:30 a.m., funeral services will begin.
-- 12:15 p.m., casket will leave the cathedral for trip to Grand Rapids, Mich.
-- 2:15 p.m., body will arrive in Michigan.
-- 3:30 p.m., casket will arrive at the presidential museum in Grand Rapids. An arrival ceremony for Mrs. Ford and guests will follow. The body will lie in public repose through the night.
  
Wednesday, Jan. 3:

-- 2 p.m., funeral services at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids. The president will be interred at a hillside site north of the museum.
  
Thursday, Jan. 4:

-- 1 p.m., Mrs. Ford and the family will return to California.

[Dolphy]

He's been away for so many years but I was really touched by this from the article you linked:

They also reflect Ford's heartfelt desire to come home, said his longtime friend Marty Allen.

A small group of us plan to help line each of the motorcade routes.

[onyx]

Good! Bless you, Dolphy.

[Rte66]

Thanks! I'm glad the Scouts weren't counting on me for directions to where they should assemble! No Front Street there - it was Fulton Street. And it's Pearl Street where the Eagle Scouts will be.

More about Ford and the Scouts at the link below this excerpt:

" ... Ford's family has asked that West Michigan Boy Scouts have a prominent role in the funeral in Grand Rapids. Thousands are expected to line the streets of the motorcade along Fulton Street. Eagle Scouts will be saluting the motorcade along Pearl Street, right before the Ford Museum where Ford will be laid to rest. ..."

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5864166&nav=menu44_2

My Dad was an Eagle Scout, so that always catches my eye.

[Dolphy]

Thank you, Onyx. I think it's important that his hometown shows an outpouring of love and respect for the time he served his country. I hope I'm able to report to you afterwards that many thousands felt the same way.

[Becki]

Thank you! I will be there.

Becki

[onyx]

I agree and this is histroic and I think we'll be pleased with the crowd. Have you checked the weather forecast?

[Dolphy]

I think it's supposed to get colder with snow towards Sunday. We are due for some actual winter weather.

On that warm thought, I'm off to bed :)

[GretchenM]

Nixon didn't have a State funeral. It was a public service in California, but not a State funeral.

It was a public service that Nixon didn't inflict a state funeral on his "fellow Americans."

[SuziQ]

My dad said that it was a crying shame that such a good man had been so blatantly lied about.

Just goes to show that the media will dump on ALL Republicans, not just the conservative ones.

[MinorityRepublican]

Things may had been different with Iran. But the "revolution" may had been inevitable. The Shah was corrupt and hated by the people even though he was pro-American.

[ReignOfError]

I wonder -- is this the first US state funeral that has spanned two years? I can't think of another, but I'm not encyclopedic on the subject.

[ReignOfError]

Don't overestimate the influence of the media. The '76 election was just over two years after Nixon's resignation, and in his first months in office Ford got to watch a catastrophic mid-term election and then pardoned Nixon. He took the office with an anchor around his neck and the general perception that he was an accidental president -- no one before or since took the office without winning a nationwide election.

He stumbled a lot, I think, because he didn't go through a presidential campaign before becoming president. He didn't have the practice at smiling for the camera, waving to the crowd, and walking down stairs at the same time. If you think that sounds easy, try it some time. Try it again where there might be ice on the steps and you're wearing dress shoes.

I'm not an exceptional klutz, but if I walk down an unfamiliar set of stairs without looking down, I'll bust my butt at least one time in fifty. If I had to do that twice a day every day, well, you do the math.

Ford got a reputation for being dumb because he spoke in a pretty monotonal and flat midwestern accent that went over well in Grand Rapids, but didn't play in the northeast. Again, lack of practice, because he'd never worked the rubber-chicken primary circuit. No one, not even Truman, was less prepared. That's not his fault, just the fickle finger of fate.

Ford was shoved onto the world's biggest stage with no script and no rehearsals, and the fact that the 1976 election was even close is a testament to the fact that he could improv, he could think on his feet and his straightforward honesty shone through.

As far as the Nixon pardon went, that counts for me as one of the great acts of political courage in the last half-century. He did the right thing for his country, though he had to know it would take a brutal toll on his own political prospects and those of his party. It's right up there with LBJ (and I know that comparison will raise some FR hackles) championing civil rights when he had to know he was pushing Southern votes away with a broom.

The caricature of Ford as a bumbler and a buffoon has less to do with Cronkite than with Chase. Chevy Chase. Ford took office at a post-Watergate time when trust in government and those who served in it was at its lowest ebb, and just at that time, along came a bunch of coked-up kids led by a Canadian to feed sharp satire to a hungry audience. Saturday Night Live might be a plodding relic today, but it was watercooler fodder in the mid-'70s. And, politics aside, they had an incredibly talented batch of actors and writers.

It's difficult, and delusional, to paint the Ford years in halcyon hues. He did not preside over our nation's brightest hours. But he got parachuted into an office he never sought, and landed chest-deep in Watergate, Vietnam, recession, a cynical press and an angry populace (or an angry press and a cynical populace -- works either way), and he pushed back the tide. He emerged with his honor and dignity intact, and in a limited time and a hostile environment he stanched the bleeding and limited the damage.

If Reagan was the surgeon who healed his country, is party, and his ideology, Ford was the paramedic who kept them alive until they got to the OR. It's only when such people are gone that we appreciate how important they were.

[ReignOfError]

I heard over Fox News, that Rummy is delivering one of the eulogies.

Seems appropriate to me. Ford tapped him for SecDef the first time around, which is why he is both the oldest and the youngest Secretary of Defense in the history of the office.

[Racehorse]

Richard Nixon did not have one. (He was entitled to one, but did not want one).

Neither did George Washington. He and -- I think -- the next seven Presidents were honored with periods of national mourning but not state funerals. William Henry Harrison may have been the first to be honored with a state funeral. Lincoln was the first to lie in state.

[Theodore R.]

I do recall that HST died at Christmas 1972, but I think the ceremonies were over by Jan. 1. Then LBJ died in January 1973 -- so there were two deaths in consecutive months, probably another record.

[Theodore R.]

I think the main reason Ford lost in 1976 was that some disgruntled Republicans refused to support him, and the American people as a whole wanted to "believe" in the "smiling" Jimmy Carter of GA. They are always taking those false leaps of hope and will do so again in 2008, I predict.

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

I heard Berstein of Woodward/Berstein say on Fox today that in the coming days there will be articles of Ford disagreeing with Bush on the Iraq war.....leave it to these two to turn this period of mourning into critizing the President

Guess what today's headline article in the Philadelphia Inquirer is?

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

Very appropriate to have the public viewing continue on through New Year's Day. Maybe there will be some in Washington that actually take to heart what Gerald Ford stood for. He was an honest guy that woul NEVER betray his country for political gain. Such a statement of condemnation for the current band of thieves...