Elizabeth Bloomer Ford | 1918-2011

President and Betty Ford look at a petition of “support and best wishes” signed by all 100 U.S. senators during her 1974 recovery from a mastectomy at Bethesda Naval Medical Center. At the time, breast cancer was a taboo subject, and she broke ground by not only disclosing her illness, but talking openly about it and her treatment.   (White House / Associated Press)

Betty Ford tours the grounds of Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, with husband Gerald and daughter Susan in August 1976.   (Graham Barclay / Associated Press)

Betty Ford, with daughter Susan Ford Bales at her side, answers a reporter’s questions in New York in June 1994. Ford said that if her family had not confronted her about her addiction to prescription pills and alcohol, it “would have probably killed me.”   (Luv Novovitch / Associated Press)

Betty Ford listens as her husband presents awards at the National Press Club in Washington in June 1997. Betty Ford was a staunch advocate of the Equal Rights Amendment and other feminist causes.   (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

Former first ladies, from left, Betty Ford, Barbara Bush, Lady Bird Johnson and Rosalynn Carter appeared at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Charles A. Dana Foundation in 1999. They were honored for their lifetime contributions to health and education.   (Diane Bondareff / Associated Press)

Former Presidents Bush, Clinton, Ford and Carter stand behind former First Ladies Barbara Bush, Lady Bird Johnson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter at a dinner in honor of the 200th anniversary of the White House in 2000.

Former President Ford talks to his wife, Betty, during a ceremony for a reconstruction project on the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail, Colo., in August 2000. He paid homage to her in his inaugural address, saying, “I am indebted to no man and only to one woman -- my dear wife, Betty.”   (Ed Andrieski / Associated Press)

Betty Ford makes an appearance in Grand Rapids, Mich., in February 2000. Ford was born in Chicago but at age 3 moved with her family to Grand Rapids, where she grew up. It was also there that she met Gerald Ford.   (Anna Moore Butzner / The Grand Rapids Press/AP)

The Fords enter the East Room of the White House for a dinner marking the 200th anniversary of the White House in 2000. The couple married Oct. 15, 1948, and he was late for the ceremony because he’d been out campaigning for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Betty Ford is escorted as President Ford‘s casket is brought out of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Palm Desert on Dec. 30, 2006, four days after his death at age 93.   (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Betty Ford and children Mike, Susan, Steven and Jack gather at Gerald Ford‘s casket in the Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 1 in Washington, where thousands of people from across the nation paid their final respects to the former president.   (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)