By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
He has an elementary school, amphitheater, post office, gardens, airport and numerous roadways named after him and now Grand Rapids’ favorite son, Gerald R. Ford, has his likeness on a bobblehead.
Actually, the newly release bobblehead in honor of Presidents’ Day is not the first time the 38th President of the United States has been memorialized on a bobblehead, but it is the first time a complete series of United States presidential bobbleheads have been released. Milwaukee’s National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum — think Madame Trussauds’ wax figures only in bobbleheads — released the series today, the day designated to celebrate the U.S. Office of the President.
“We’re excited to release this complete collection of bobbleheads featuring all 46 U.S. Presidents to celebrate Presidents’ Day,” said Phil Sklar, CEO and co-founder of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. “Each president played an important part in our country’s history, and we think people will enjoy this new series of presidential bobbleheads.”
Presidents’ Day started in 1879 by an Act of Congress to honor the nation’s first president, George Washington, whose birthday in the Gregorian calendar is on Feb. 22. (Washington was born on Feb. 11 under the Julian calendar which because it did not account for leap days, was about 11 days behind the Gregorian calendar, the calendar that had been adopted by the countries tied to the Catholic church. In 1752, the British Empire switched to the Gregorian calendar.)
There was a movement in 1951, to have a “Presidents’ Day.” It wasn’t until 1971 that the official holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which was a move to shift many federal holidays to a three-day weekend. The act also combined the birthdays of Washington and Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12, into a single holiday that honored all of the U.S. Presidents.
This change took effect with an executive order from the President Richard Nixon whose vice president at the time was Spiro Agnew. In 1973, Agnew resigned with Nixon choosing Ford as his new vice president. As Ford and his wife Betty prepared to move to the new vice president’s residence, Ford received a call to be ready to become the next U.S. President, which he did on Aug. 9, 1974.
Ford is the only person to serve as U.S. president without ever having been elected to the office. He would lose his bid for reelection to Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Today, Ford’s museum is in Grand Rapids, his childhood home, and his library is in Ann Arbor, where he attended the University of Michigan. Over the years, several other places have honored Ford by bestowing his name on several buildings such as the Gerald R. Ford Elementary School in Indian Wells, California; the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail, Colorado; the Gerald R. Ford Post Office in Vail, Colorado; the Gerald R. Ford Birth Site and Gardens in Omaha, Nebraska; and the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There are also several roadways in Tennessee, California, Texas, Nebraska, and Michigan, such as the Gerald R. Ford Freeway, I-196, that are named after the former president along with the Gerald R. Ford Fieldhouse at Grand Rapids Community College as well as several books about his life.
The Ford bobblehead, along with the other 45 presidents, is available individuals or as part of the set through the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum’s online store. The museum is located at 170 S. 1st. St. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is open seven days a week.
