Funeral services for Betty Ford set for next week

PALM SPRINGS — Funeral services for former first lady Betty Ford will begin Tuesday in Palm Springs and end with her burial in Grand Rapids, Mich., representatives of the Ford family said.

Ford, wife of the late former President Gerald R. Ford, died Friday at age 93.

A spokesman for the family said her casket will be taken Tuesday to St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert and after a private visitation at 11 a.m. PT, the funeral would begin.

The eulogists will be Rosalynn Carter, wife of former President Jimmy Carter, journalist Cokie Roberts and Geoffrey Mason, a member of the board of directors of the Betty Ford Center.

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The public is invited to pay their respects from 5 p.m. to midnight.

Her body will leave California Wednesday morning on a flight to Grand Rapids, Mich.

After arrival in Grand Rapids, the casket will be taken to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum for a brief service. There will be a public repose in the atrium beginning about 7 p.m. Wednesday.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, there will be a funeral service at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids, where the former president's funeral was held in 2007. He died in December 2006.

The eulogists will be Lynn Cheney, wife of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and presidential historian and biographer Richard Norton Smith.

Private interment will follow at the Ford museum.

The Ford family has created a website for those who would like to leave condolences: www.bettyfordmemorial.com/