You know something is wrong when Rick and Suzanne are the first thing you see when you turn on the TV at 5:15 AM. The link above will take you to a page at WOOD with all the information you will ever need- I once remarked they would go to round the clock coverage when he died, and apparently they have. The Press has an extensive biography here.
President Ford will be buried here in Grand Rapids, details later. My little town will be draped in mourning for some time to come.
I was 11 when he left office. Seems to me he was the last "decent Republican", as my father said today.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."
The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments -- including an angioplasty -- in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.
Already the tributes are pouring in, both down at the museum and from across the nation. If I get a chance I will get down there and get some pictures.