Betty Ford, the trailblazing former first lady who raised awareness for breast cancer and substance use disorders and passionately advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment, is the subject of a new stamp unveiled Wednesday by the U.S. Postal Service.
Ford served as first lady from 1974 to 1977. Her husband, former President Gerald Ford, had been a longtime Republican congressman from Grand Rapids. He is the only president in U.S. history who had never been elected president or vice president after separate scandals forced the resignations of former Vice President Spiro Agnew and former President Richard Nixon.
While the Ford family didn’t plan on inhabiting the White House, Betty Ford rose to the occasion, first lady Jill Biden said on Wednesday.
“There is no roadmap for becoming a first lady, let alone becoming one overnight,” Biden said. “As she did with everything in her life, Betty Ford threw herself into the new role.”
Biden said Ford told her husband, “If we have to go to the White House, OK, I will go. But I’m going as myself. And if they don’t like it, they’ll just have to throw me out.”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy credited Ford with the modern understanding of what being first lady entails.
“Betty Ford was a remarkable first lady and a remarkable person, and she represents the very best of America,” DeJoy said. “In many ways, Betty Ford changed the role of being the first lady. She raised the public’s consciousness on a range of issues, and our nation certainly benefited from her voice and her views.”
That’s, in part, because Ford helped set the precedent for first ladies being politically active, as she supported abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment.
“Betty’s time in the White House may have been brief, but her mark was lasting. She was unafraid to speak her mind,” Biden said. “When her husband’s senior advisors complained about Betty placing calls from the White House lobby to the ERA, she installed her own personal phone line.”
Susan Ford Bales, the daughter of Betty and Gerald Ford, recalled the day in 1974 when her mom informed her that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“That afternoon, my exciting life in the White House was shattered,” Bales said. “My mother took me aside and whispered four words to me: I have breast cancer. In those days, her diagnosis was grim; Mom likely was going to die. The unavoidable fear, the kind that reaches down into the pit of your stomach, was wrenching.”
“I recall Mom’s conversation with Dad and me about whether to share her diagnosis, a mastectomy, with the public,” Bales added. “Should she announce that she has cancer? Should anyone, much less the first lady, dare say the word breast in public? How much should we talk about this, something so personal to any woman?”
Bales said that her immediate reaction was that her mother should maintain her privacy.
“I wanted her to do what so many other women had done: Simply mention that she was having so-called ‘female problems’ and [was] to undergo exploratory surgery. She bluntly disagreed. She said, ‘The time for women hiding this disease in shame and behind closed doors has to stop. And who better to make that happen than the first lady of the United States,’” Bales said. “She took the brave yet controversial step and told the world the truth about her disease. And with those same four words she whispered to me, my mom announced that she had breast cancer. Instantly, the arc of women’s health and the future lives of tens of millions of women has been changed forever.”
That decision led to a surge in women getting screened for breast cancer.
“As she lay in a hospital bed in Bethesda, she watched news programs beaming footage of women lining up at hospitals to get their screenings too,” Biden said. “She didn’t think what she did was revolutionary – she was simply being Betty: forthright, honest and relatable. Countless women would owe their lives to following her example.”
Four years later, Bales was part of another difficult conversation with her mother, as the former first lady’s relatives explained to her the impact her drug and alcohol use was having on her and their family. Ford sought treatment at the Naval Regional Medical Hospital in Long Beach.
“Back then, [the] stigma of prescription and alcohol addiction was as cynical as it was cruel. Most often, it was confused incorrectly with individual moral failure, and a failure caused solely by personal choice. Nevertheless, Mom refused to hide in the dark of secrecy and shame,” Bales said. “She candidly discussed her condition and treatment and she demonstrated by word and deed that in seeking treatment, what some might call for personal weakness, is in truth the hopeful pathway to renewal.”
Ford and former ambassador Leonard Firestone established the Betty Ford Center for substance dependency in 1982, lending her name to the center in hopes of destigmatizing substance use disorder.
“There are times throughout history when courageous people stand up. And when courageous people stand up, they change the conversation for the entire country,” said Joseph Lee, president and chief executive officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. “Where there was only shame, loneliness and despair, she replaced it with hope, dignity, compassion, community and equity. For the first time, due to her actions and her words, millions of people across the country felt seen, felt heard, for the very first time.”
That impact is felt nationwide to this day, Lee said, thanks to a network of Hazelden Betty Ford treatment sites throughout the country.
“At the Betty Ford Center in California, right now, patients and their family members are walking the same grounds that Mrs. Ford walked for nearly three decades,” Lee said. “They are beginning to break through, overcoming substance use and mental health challenges. They are transforming their lives with possibilities beyond the imagination.”
“Betty Ford made sure that addiction was not seen as a second-class illness for second-class citizens. Instead, she sent a powerful message that everyone on the journey of recovery deserves dignity and quality health care,” Lee said. “That’s a message I hope will be conveyed every time someone uses this stamp and sees it on an envelope.”
A dedication ceremony for the stamp will be held April 5 in California.
The stamp will be issued as a First-Class Mail Forever stamp, meaning they can continue to be used to send mail regardless of future increases to the price of stamps.
A single stamp will cost 68 cents, or a book of 20 stamps will be available for $13.60.
Ford died in 2011 at age 93 and was laid to rest at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids.
“Mrs. Ford’s extraordinary story is a lesson in the beautiful and sometimes cruel unpredictability of life and our capacity for redemption,” Biden said. “Her journey reminds us that we are not defined by our worst moments, but rather by our ability to turn life’s inevitable pain and struggle into purpose and salvation. Heroism is not perfection; it is resilience.”
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