Gerald Rudolff Ford

Gerald Rudolff Ford (December 9, 1890 – January 26, 1962) was a Grand Rapids businessman and Republican politician who was the stepfather of U.S. President Gerald Ford and for whom Ford legally changed his name. Ford was born and died in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he raised the future President. The senior Ford's father George Ford died in a train accident in 1903 forcing him to drop out of school to support the family. He was working as a paint salesman at the Grand Rapids Wood Finishing Company when he met the future President's mother Dorothy Ayer Gardner King who in 1913 had fled to Michigan from Omaha, Nebraska 16 days after the President's birth after she said the birth father Leslie Lynch King, Sr. had physically abused her....