Rev. James Ford; 58th Chaplain of House of Representatives
The Rev. James D. Ford, 70, who served as chaplain of the House of Representatives for two decades, died Monday in Washington, D.C., his family said Thursday.
Ford, who ministered to House members and their families from 1979 until his retirement last year, was born in South Dakota and graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., and the Augustana Theological Seminary in Rock Island, Ill. Both his father and grandfather were Lutheran pastors.
He started as a parish pastor in Ivanhoe, Minn., a community of 719 people, moving on to the U.S. Military Academy in 1961. In 1965, President Johnson made Ford, then 33, the youngest military academy chaplain in history.
As the 58th chaplain of the House, Ford was responsible for opening each day’s session with a prayer, counseling lawmakers and their families and presiding over their marriages and funerals.
The Rev. Daniel P. Coughlin, the House’s first Roman Catholic chaplain, succeeded Ford in March last year.
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