Pets
Liberty
How the Fords Got Liberty
(from President Ford's memoir A Time to Heal (Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 192-193)
… our family didn't have a dog when we moved into the White House. Susan [the Fords' daughter] and David [David Kennerly, the White House photographer] thought that situation should be rectified before Betty [Mrs. Ford] came home from the hospital.
Without telling me his intention, David did some research and discovered that a fine retriever had recently given birth to a litter in Minneapolis. David called the kennel's owner and said he wanted to buy a puppy for a friend of his.
That was fine, the owner said, but what was the name of David's friend?
David said it was a surprise; he wanted to keep the name secret.
"We don't sell dogs that way," the owner replied. "We have to know if the dog is going to a good home. "
"The couple is friendly," David said. "They're middle-aged, and they live in a white house with a big yard and a fence around it. It's a lovely place."
"Do they own or rent?" the owner asked.
David thought for a minutes "I guess you might call it public housing," he said.
The owner said the dog was healthy; she was going to eat a lot. Did his friend have a steady job? David could play the game no longer. He hinted that his friend was a very important person and finally the owner agreed to fly the dog to Washington. I was in the Oval Office the day before Betty came back from the hospital when Susan walked in. "Daddy," she asked, "if we ever get another dog, what kind are we going to get?"
"A female golden retriever about six months old," I said.
At that moment, David entered with a copper-colored pup who raced around the Oval Office yelping excitedly. "Whose dog is that?" I asked.
"It's yours." Susan and David laughed. "Her name was Streaker, but we've changed it to Liberty."
Delighted, I grabbed the pup, put her on my lap, then got down on my hands and knees and played with her on the rug. That was a joyous experience, and I knew that Betty would be just as thrilled as I was to welcome the new addition to our family.
President Ford and Liberty Get Locked Out of the White House
(from Mrs. Ford's memoir The Times of My Life (Harper & Row, 1978), pp. 241-242)
But, with motherhood imminent, we were afraid she'd [Liberty] deliver at night, so we moved her inside, and for a short while she slept on the third floor with a trainer. One night the trainer had to be away, and he left Liberty with us. "If she wants to go out," he said, "she'll come and lick your face."
About three o'clock in the morning, she came and licked Jerry's [President Ford] face. Like a good daddy, he got up, pulled on a robe and slippers, took the dog downstairs and out onto the south lawn. When they were ready to come back, Jerry rang for the elevator. But at night the elevator goes off - You have to get it charged up or something. Secret Service agents are in a room in the basement (they have a mirror and closed-circuit TV and there are lights all over the grounds), and usually they notice anything that moves, so I still don't understand how they missed the scene with the odd couple. Maybe somebody dozed off.
Anyway, Jerry decided to try the stairs. He opened the door to the stairwell, said, "Come on, Liberty," and up they climbed to the second floor, Liberty waddling from side to side, her stomach with nine puppies in it practically hanging on the ground. They got to the second floor, and the door to the hall was locked. You can get out, but you can't get back in. They went up again, to the third floor. Also locked. And there they were, a President and his dog, wandering around in a stairwell in the wee small hours of the morning, not able to get back to bed. Finally they came all the way down again, and by that time the Secret Service had been alerted, and somebody got the elevator started.
Liberty's Paw-tographs
Soon after President Ford acquired his golden retriever in October 1974 (see "How the Fords Got Liberty"), the White House staff began receiving letters addressed to Liberty or asking questions about her. The President's daughter Susan agreed to respond to letters asking about either Liberty or her cat Shan. Dorothy Downton, who served as Personal Secretary to President Ford, eventually began producing photographs "autographed" by Liberty as in the example below:
President Ford and Liberty - signed with an original "paw-tograph" (original size 8"x10")
Ms. Downton reports that:
"This photograph was used for special friends of the Ford family who requested an autographed photograph of Liberty. Every so often I would have about ten to twelve photographs sent to my office where I would then arrange for Liberty to be brought to my office and we would do her autograph. The photographs would be attached to a hard cardboard backing and sometimes would be addressed using calligraphy to the individual or individuals requesting the photograph. When Liberty arrived in my office, I would clean her paw very carefully and then press her clean paw on an inked stamp pad and then press the inked paw on the cardboard backing. I would then proceed with the rest of the photographs I had received. I probably would not have done more than ten or twelve at any one time. When we had autographed all the photographs for that period, I would then again clean Liberty's paw quite thoroughly so she would not leave a trail of ink on the carpets. Liberty, who was a most gorgeous golden retriever, was always very gentle and patient while I did her autographs. She was a delight to work with and a pleasure to have around. She was also extremely friendly."
As news reports of these "paw-tographs" surfaced, many individuals wrote to the White House asking for them. Eventually the White House staff made a copy of Liberty's pawprint, turned it into a rubber stamp, and began stamping her "autograph" onto photographs. The images below show the form letter used to answer these requests along with one of the stamped paw-tographed photographs.
Misty, Liberty's Daughter
Misty’s Birth
(Excerpt from Mrs. Ford's memoir The Times of My Life (Harper & Row, 1978), pp. 242-243)
We prepared for Liberty’s accouchement by stripping a room on the third floor and making it into a hospital. We put down plastic sheets, and a tarp on top of the plastic, so there would be no possibility of damaging the floor, and we built a whelping box.
I sat on the floor and held Liberty’s head for eight hours, until the first puppy came, and then I just went on stroking her and talking to her while the vet and Susan and the trainer were working, drying off the baby dogs, laughing at all the barking. I could see there was only one blonde, and I decided I wanted to keep her. Sometimes I feel guilty because Misty grew into a big, strong husky animal who ought to be a working dog, not just a house pet, but I don’t think I could part with her now.
…
David Kennerly shot the puppy picture and it took forever. To keep nine puppies still long enough to get a picture of all of them with their mother was practically impossible. We’d have them artistically arranged, and one of them would wander off, or roll over, or try to leave the room.
We gave them all away, except for Misty.
One of Misty’s siblings, Jerry, went on to the Leader Dog School for the Blind and became a guide dog.
Shan
Shan was born on April 9, 1973 and was a miniature Sealpoint Siamese. She was named after a village in China that Mr. Ford visited when he was in Congress. Shan slept with a heating pad ever since she was a baby and would often sleep by Mrs. Ford if she took an afternoon nap or relaxed. One of Shan's favorite hiding spots was underneath the Lincoln bed where she played with the fringe.
(Excerpts from Mrs. Ford's memoir The Times of My Life (Harper & Row, 1978):
Pp 110:
We also had some animal problems. Susan yearned for a kitten but I had an allergy to cats. Until she fell in love with a horse. We gave her horseback-riding lessons, and one day she came home from the stables and said there was a horse she’d like to buy. I saw the horse. Not only was it an old horse, it was a sick horse. Susan wanted to nurse it back to health; she was afraid it was going to die. And of course it was going to die, and I thought I’d be happier if it went to its reward straight from the stable, rather than from our front yard. We compromised. “Susan,” I said, “why don’t we settle for a cat? I think I’ve outgrown my allergy.”
Pp 164:
August 17. Susan goes off to the beach for a week and leaves me with her cat, Shan, and mixed emotions.
August 19. Susan’s cat, Shan, ensconces herself in the bathroom. That night Jerry and I get into bed, and Jerry looks around and laughs. “It’s the best public housing I’ve ever seen,” he says.
Pp 167:
August 25. Susan home from beach. Her cat has become my great friend. If I get on the bed to take a nap, Shan’s right there with me. She’s been permitted to wander freely through our quarters. Now she’s banished. “Okay, Susan,” I say. “I’ve had her for several days. You take her on upstairs to your room.” The End. After that, Shan never speaks to me again. If I put out my hand to pet her, she scoots like a flying tiger down the whole length of the White House, and no matter how I try to coax or feed her, nothing works. (Susan loses Shan, finally. That cat walks out on her. Typical Siamese.)
Other Family Pets
The Alligator
(Excerpt from Mrs. Ford's memoir The Times of My Life (Harper & Row, 1978), pp. 93-94
“We raised every kind of animal in the world. Including an alligator which was sent to us when it was a baby. It grew so large the boys had to build a box for it out in the backyard. It was a nasty thing; they had to put on their boxing gloves when they went to feed it, and they had to catch live things for it to eat. Jack always wondered what happened to that alligator. Because, when the fall came, I started thinking about their bringing the alligator into the recreation room, or the laundry room, to get bigger and bigger all through the winter. It was already about four feet long, and if Jack or Mike ever took it out, they had to put a rope around its neck, and the instant it got free, it took after them. So I just decided to let nature take its course.
One night there was a frost, and the next morning Jack went to check the alligator, and came back looking puzzled. “He’s not moving,” he said.
I felt guilty. “Do you suppose it was so cold last night that he got pneumonia and died?”
Jack nodded soberly. “I think that must have been it. I should have protected him.”
Clara helped dig the grave in the backyard, and the horrid pet was buried with all due ceremony, a cross planted over its head.”
(Excerpt from Betty Ford by Lisa McCubbin (Gallery Books, 2018), pp. 76)
"... Steve Ford convinced his mother to let him get an alligator.
“It started out being just a few inches in length, like a gecko, but it grew and grew until it got to be a couple of feet long. The boys would catch live crickets, and an occasional mouse for it to eat, but mostly they’d feed it store-bought ground beef. As the gator got bigger, it required a lot of ground beef."
The Snake
(Excerpt from Mrs. Ford's memoir The Times of My Life (Harper & Row, 1978) pp. 110)
Before she got the cat, my daughter kept a snake in a hatbox under her bed. None of us knew about this until the morning we noticed Susan prowling up and down the halls searching for something. She’d given up and gone to school when I overheard a conversation between Clara and a woman named Alice, who came in to do the heavy cleaning. “Clara,” Alice was saying, “do we have a snake?”
“A snake?” said Clara. “Heavens, no.”
“Well,” said Alice, “there’s one upstairs in Mrs. Ford’s bathroom.”
Sure enough, there was a black snake slithering up the Venetian blind. Clara and Alice trapped it. One of them raised the blind, the other held a box underneath, the snake slipped down into the box, and they took it out to the garage and put it in an empty fish tank.
When Susan came home, she was relieved. “I looked all morning,” she said, “and I couldn’t find it.”