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
Gerald Rudolff Ford Company when he met the future President's mother Dorothy Ayer Gardner King. Dorothy had fled to Michigan from Omaha, Nebraska in 1913, 16 days after the President's birth, claiming that her husband (and her son's birth father), Leslie Lynch King, Sr., had physically abused her. She came to Grand Rapids to be near her parents, Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer Gardner, who lived in the town. The couple married on February 1, 1917 following Dorothy's divorce from King when the future President was three and began calling Dorothy's first son "Gerald." Gerald Rudolff Ford and Dorothy Ford had