Betty Ford has died at age 93.<\/p>\n
She was a candid woman who spoke her mind. As First Lady, she was disagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a radical mastectomy. Her bravery pushed the disease into public consciousness and sent millions of women to the doctor for mamograms.<\/p>\n
Later, when she became dependent on prescription drugs and alcohol, she admitted it publicly, underwent rehabilitation and went on to found the Betty Ford Center in California — a high-profile substance-abuse treatment facility that\u00a0eased the\u00a0traditional shame from substance dependency.<\/p>\n
Her husband, former President Gerald Ford — the only U.S. president not to be elected to the\u00a0White House\u00a0— died in December 2006. He was appointed vice president by Congress after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned amid a corruption scandal from his days as Maryland governor. When President Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment over the Watergate scandal, Ford stepped up as America’s 38th president.<\/p>\n
Only\u00a0weeks later,\u00a0 Betty was diagnosed with beast cancer\u00a0and won acclaim for her openness and courage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided that if the White House was our fate,\u201d she once said of\u00a0her husband’s\u00a0presidency, \u201cI might as well have a good time doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her death was confirmed by Elaine Didier, the director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps it was unusual for a first lady to be as outspoken about issues as I was, but that was my temperament,\u201d she said in 1994. \u201cI don’t like to be dishonest, so when people asked me, I said what I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Betty Ford has died at age 93. She was a candid woman who spoke her mind. As First Lady, she was disagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a radical mastectomy. Her bravery pushed the disease into public consciousness and sent millions of women to the doctor for mamograms. Later, when she became dependent on prescription…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1047,2201],"class_list":["post-3979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-betty-ford","tag-news"],"yoast_head":"\n