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| Betty Ford 1918-2011 |
Cokie Roberts (Sacred Heart alumna of Stone Ridge) will give the eulogy for Former First Lady Betty Ford today at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Springs, California.
In an interview with ABC news yesterday, Cokie describes the impact Mrs. Ford had and her legacy with regard to breast cancer awareness, the Equal Rights Amendment and substance abuse treatment. It was in the Fall of 1982 that the Betty Ford Center opened and tens of thousands have credited Mrs. Ford for helping them. The center provides treatment for alcoholism and drug dependencies.
Mrs. Ford will be laid to rest on Thursday in Grand Rapids, MI on the anniversary of her husband's 98th birthday.
HOW APPROPRIATE THAT COKIE SHOULD GIVE THE EULOGY FOR BETTY FORD..FOR SO MANY REASONS..SUCH AS, BREAKING THE SILENCE AND COMPLETING HISTORIES WITH HERSTORIES..
ReplyDeleteAs we know, Mother Rose Philippine Duchesne, came with the first five RSCJ's to the United States in 1818 as missionaries to the needy settlers and even more needy Indians, especially the young women, of the Upper Mississippi Valley. When she was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1988, it was a source of inspiration ..
In 2008, she was further recognized by being included in a listing of twenty-two, directly after the five First Ladies, in SHA Cokie Roberts third book of a trilogy about women founding mothers of the U.S., LADIES OF LIBERTY. In Cincinnati, a group formed from the local ASH, have started a reading/sharing/validation/support group, beginning with this latest work of Cokie's as well as the earlier WE ARE OUR MOTHERS DAUGHTERS and FOUNDING MOTHERS which she dedicated, respectively to her own Mother, a well known member of the House of Representatives and the first woman from the U.S. to be Ambassador to the Vatican and to Religious of the Sacred Heart.
Regarding these books... a reviewer wrote in USA Today, that they are "impressively researched work(s) of women's lives...a welcome addition to American Revolution biography which had been.saturated by the lives of Founding Fathers,.[filling in] blanks and substance, detail and dimension to what until now has seemed a strangely distant and utterly masculine mythology." Both Mothers Barat and Duchesne are included under "Educators, Reformers and Explorers" as are the Ursuline Nuns of New Orleans who housed and helped the first RSCJ's recoup from their three-month crossing of the Atlantic.
In the Cincinnati group, we have a participant, Elizabeth Wilder Gerwin Clay, Clifton '56 and Duchesne Residence, NY '58, who is married to a descendant of Henry Clay's, Catesby, and who lives in the Clay family historical residence, in Paris KY very near Cincinnati with her husband and eight children. Of Henry Clay and his wife, Cokie writes quite a bit. With her deft and amusing humor, she says, for example, when Dollie Madison heard that Henry Clay "paid her the compliment: 'Everybody loves Mrs. Madison,' she replied that was because "the fun-loving, snuff-dipping Mrs. Madison loves everybody." Henry Clay became Speaker of the House, as Cokie's Father, Hale Boggs, had been, too, and Dollie Madison "wasted no time befriending [Clay] "and his allies. Soon Clay was on such good terms with the First Lady that he was sharing her snuffbox." Dollie also became good friends with Clay's wife, Margaret Bayard Smith, who just might have been a relative of one of my own Grandmothers, Mary Susan Smith Beam..
We are enjoying doing this group and truly look forward to the meetings. If any one who reads this is in or close by Cincinnati and would like to join us, for Mass of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, lunch and a meeting, 11:15 am - 2:30 pm on August 15, please let us know at ashcincinnati@gmail.com. We love visitors!
I forgot to give my own name when commenting about Cokie etc.: Winifred Beam Kessler, currently Board Secretary, ASHC-C (Alumnae of the Sacred Heart Clifton-Cincinnati.) My gratitudes are for my years at Maryville as a student,as a teacher for three years then mother of a student for six years at Clifton, Academy of the Sacred Heart, Cincinnati and Prefect of the Children of Mary, both at Maryville and for the ASH in Cincinnati.
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