Death and state funeral of Gerald Ford grandchildren came to the museum that night and greeted mourners for several hours. Shortly after noon on January 3, Ford's body was removed from the museum and taken by motorcade to Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids, where a private funeral service was conducted Thousands of people lined the entire motorcade route to the church. During the service, eulogies were delivered by Donald Rumsfeld (President Ford's White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense), former President Jimmy Carter, Richard Norton Smith (former Director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum and a close personal friend of
Presidency of Gerald Ford polls had shown as a 33-point Carter lead to a 2-point margin. Polls of historians and political scientists have generally ranked Ford as a below-average to average president. A 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Ford as the 25th best president. A 2017 C-Span poll of historians also ranked Ford as the 25th best president. Historian John Robert Greene writes that "Ford had difficulty navigating a demanding political environment." He also notes, however, that "Americans, by and large, believed that Gerald Ford was an innately decent and good man and that he