When her husband became the nation’s 38th president, Betty Ford was suddenly and reluctantly in the world spotlight.
Her approach won over a nation that had not heard a president’s wife talk so candidly about taboo topics, including her own addictions and her battle against breast cancer. Gerald Ford’s death Tuesday once again is pushing Betty Ford into the spotlight, introducing her to a new generation of Americans.
Now 88, the former first lady lives in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Although reportedly slowed by arthritis, she continues to serve as chairman of the nearby Betty Ford Center, a facility treating the alcohol and drug dependencies that she overcame in 1978 after her husband left the presidency.
At that time, many still considered such addictions to be more a matter of morals than medicine. However, Betty Ford’s discussion of her reliance on prescription painkillers and alcohol helped people perceive chemical substance abuse as a disease, said Joseph A. Califano, former secretary of health, education and welfare and founder of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
In addition, her vigorous fundraising created a world-renowned treatment center that has served about 60,000 people in the past two decades.
“Rarely does anyone’s name become a noun. Everyone knows what you’re talking about if you say, ‘I’m going to Betty Ford,”‘ said historian John Robert Greene, author of “Betty Ford: Candor and Courage in the White House.”
In a little more than two years as first lady, she managed not only to embrace her new job but to leave a lasting impression.
“I tried not to dodge subjects,” she writes in her autobiography, “The Times of My Life.” “I felt the public had a right to know where I stood. Nobody had to feel the way I felt, I wasn’t forcing my opinions on anybody, but if someone asked me a question, I gave that person a straight answer.”
Diagnosed with breast cancer only two months after becoming first lady, Ford shared many of the details of her diagnosis, treatment and recovery. Her frankness inspired women to practice self-examination and to be checked for breast cancer.
Ford’s outgoing personality stood in sharp contrast to the reserve of her predecessor, Pat Nixon, said Kriste Lindenmeyer, chairman of the History Department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
“The fact that Betty was honest and forthright added to the impression of Gerald Ford as someone who was going to bring honesty to the presidency at a time when we really needed it,” Lindenmeyer said. “As much as people look at Gerald Ford as being a healing president, I also think Betty Ford created an atmosphere of healing. The fact she was so very open about her problems did a lot to open the White House to the average American.”
