Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb__ A Tour of Presidential Gravesites - Brian Lamb [69]
“The theme was one of reconciliation…”
—Richard Norton Smith
In June 1993, I was privileged to join the congregation of mourners who attended Pat Nixon’s funeral, held in the rose garden of the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. Afterwards, we were invited inside the library for an impromptu tribute from a grieving husband. Richard Nixon spoke that day of the joys of grandparenting. He remembered how his first grandchild, young Melanie Eisenhower, had been uncertain what to call Pat. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Nixon thought Grandmother overly formal and Grandma a bit too ancient for her liking.
“Why don’t you just call me Ma?” Pat told the little girl. Melanie next approached her grandfather with the same question.
“Oh, that’s all right, Melanie,” the former president replied. “You can call me anything, because I’ve been called everything.”
“Checkers,” Nixon’s famous dog, is immortalized on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library
Richard Nixon was born in this Yorba Linda, California home
Looking around, I saw Senator Bob Dole biting his lip, struggling to contain his emotions. A few feet away stood former Senator George McGovern, Nixon’s 1972 opponent, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. Later on, McGovern was approached by a reporter crass enough to ask what he was doing at the funeral services. McGovern expressed his longstanding admiration for Mrs. Nixon, only to be reminded of the alleged dirty tricks conducted by the Nixon campaign a generation earlier. The implication was clear: how could he in good conscience honor the wife of such an opponent?
“You can’t keep campaigning forever,” said McGovern.
The exchange came back to me just ten months later when attending the late president’s funeral service at the Nixon Library. Again, the theme was one of reconciliation, unforgettably illustrated by the presence of America’s five living presidents and their wives, as well as President Clinton’s generous invitation to stop judging America’s most controversial president on anything less than his entire record.
—RNS
Gerald R. Ford
Buried: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Thirty-eighth President - 1974-1977
Born: July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska
Died: 6:45 p.m. on December 26, 2006, in Rancho Mirage, California
Age at death: 93
Cause of death: heart disease
Final words: Unknown
Admission to Gerald R. Ford Museum: $7.00
Gerald Ford is the only man in American history to have reached the Oval Office without being elected as either president or vice president. He stood for election in 1976; after narrowly losing, Ford attended Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, then said good-bye to his staff. Setting out for the warm temperatures of Palm Springs, California, and a game with legendary golfer Arnold Palmer, he told reporters, “The presidency was hard, but I had anticipated it would be. I had seen presidents before. I had seen the tough jobs they had, the difficult decisions they had to make. So I knew it would be tough. But I have always liked long hours.”
Even before his presidency ended, Gerald Ford considered his legacy. On December 13, 1976, Ford wrote to the president of the University of Michigan, his beloved alma mater, and offered to give all his papers to the federal government, with the understanding that they would be housed in a campus library. He became the first president to donate his papers while still in office. On the last day of his presidency, nine vans filled with 8,500 cubic feet of Gerald Ford’s papers headed for Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan opened its doors in 1981
The library opened in April 1981; the Gerald R. Ford Museum, located in Ford’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, opened in September that same year. Today the library provides researchers with over 20 million documents relating to Ford’s presidency. The Ford Museum profiles the former president’s life and career with exhibits