Full Name: Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. Profession: American lawyer, long-serving U.S. Representative for Michigan, and 38th President of the United States—the only person to become president without being elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency Nationality: American Born: 14 July 1913 Birthplace: Omaha, Nebraska, United States Generation: Greatest Generation (GI Generation), the cohort of Americans born roughly between 1901 and 1924 who came of age during the Great Depression and served in World War II. Chinese Zodiac: Water Ox, corresponding to the Ox year that ran from February 6, 1913, to January 25, 1914. Zodiac Sign: Cancer (Sun in Cancer) Age in 2026: 113 years (he would be 113 in 2026 based on his 1913 birth year) Marital Status: Married to Elizabeth Anne “Betty” Bloomer Ford from October 15, 1948, until his death Children: Four—Michael Gerald Ford, John “Jack” Gardner Ford, Steven Meigs Ford, and Susan Elizabeth Ford Bales Description: Gerald Ford, born Leslie Lynch King Jr. and later renamed after his stepfather, rose from a Midwestern upbringing in Grand Rapids to national prominence as a Republican congressman known for bipartisanship, diligence, and personal integrity; after starring as a football player at the University of Michigan and serving as a Navy officer in World War II, he represented Michigan’s 5th Congressional District for nearly twenty-five years, eventually becoming House minority leader before being appointed vice president in 1973 under the 25th Amendment following Spiro Agnew’s resignation; on August 9, 1974, amid the Watergate scandal, he assumed the presidency upon Richard Nixon’s resignation, declaring that “our long national nightmare is over” and devoting his 1974–1977 term to restoring public trust, managing the difficult economic context of stagflation, overseeing the final evacuation of Saigon and the formal end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and continuing Cold War-era détente; his most controversial act was granting a full, free, and absolute pardon to Nixon for all federal offenses, a decision he defended as necessary to help the country move beyond Watergate but which damaged his popularity and likely contributed to his narrow defeat by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election; nonetheless, historians often credit Ford with guiding the United States through a constitutional crisis with steadiness and decency, emphasizing his image as a modest, athletic, family-oriented Midwesterner who preferred candor over charisma and who remained an elder statesman active in public life well into old age. Cause of Death: Complications of cardiovascular disease—specifically arteriosclerotic cerebrovascular disease and diffuse arteriosclerosis—leading to his death at home in Rancho Mirage, California, on December 26, 2006, at age 93.