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
President Gerald R. Ford Jr. Boyhood Home President Gerald R. Ford Jr. Boyhood Home The President Gerald R. Ford Jr. Boyhood Home is a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is located at 649 Union SE in Grand Rapids. Gerald R. Ford, the thirty-eighth president of the United States lived here from the age of 8 to 17 (1921 – 1930). Of all his boyhood homes, Ford remembered this one most vividly in his autobiography. Ford recalled that he and his friends used the garage behind the house as a social club. "We learned to play penny-ante