GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Betty Ford returned Wednesday to the city where she grew up and wed the man who became the only president from Michigan, prompting hundreds to line the streets in front of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum as her casket arrived for a memorial service.
The service was followed by a public viewing at the museum, where Ford’s flower-draped casket was placed, surrounded by an honor guard and with a softly lit presidential seal overhead. At least 300 mourners had paid their respects Wednesday evening halfway through the four-hour viewing, which followed a similar, and sometimes tearful, send-off by thousands of well-wishers in California earlier in the day.
After another memorial service today in Grand Rapids, Ford is to be buried next to her husband on the grounds of his presidential museum. Gerald Ford died in 2006.
