Made you feel like family
ALL |
EAGLE COUNTY – The stories have come over the phone, via e-mail and walking into the office with their keepers.The people live in Vail and Beaver Creek, Edwards and Eagle, but all responded to a call for their memories of President Gerald Ford and his time in the Vail Valley. Virtually everyone remembered the former president and his family fondly.Here then, are some shared memories of the Fords.
Tafoya was a course marshal at the 1980 Jerry Ford Invitational golf tournament. The tournament was always in August, and volunteers were invited to a party in their honor in September. Ford would usually come to the party.That summer, Tafoya – then Pamela Lyon – broke her leg between the tournament and the party. She asked for to sign her cast, and he obliged.”It was the only signature I got on it,” she said. “It was the only one I needed.”The Vail Trail’s Allen Knox took a photo, and sent it to Tafoya. She then sent it to Ford, who signed the photo and returned it. It’s framed and hanging on the wall of Tafoya’s home today.
For years, Tanner played and sang at the annual Beaver Creek Christmas tree-lighting ceremonies. The Fords, of course, always lit the tree.”When we’d be in the green room together before the show, every year he would stop what he was doing and make a point of coming to me and shaking my hand,” Tanner said. “He’d ask how I’d been and about my family. He really made me fell like I was part of his family.”He was a great man and a great president, and he’s going to be missed.”
Peterson, a retired hairdresser, used to do Betty Ford’s hair. She got to know the family, and they got to know her.Two years ago, when Peterson was in a Denver hospital following brain surgery, she got a call from Betty Ford’s secretary, asking if she could call in a couple of hours. Peterson said yes, of course.”The phone rang and I was expecting Betty,” Peterson said. “Instead, it was this deep voice: ‘I’m calling for Betty Ford.’ It was him of course. When she got on the phone, she said, ‘How do you like my new secretary?'”Peterson recognized Ford’s voice immediately, because he would often answer the house phone when she would call to re-schedule a hair appointment for Betty.”Only in America does a hairdresser call a client and a former president answers the phone,” she said.
The Eagle-Vail Animal Hospital used to take care of Happy, one of the Fords’ dogs. One summer day Colecchia went to the Fords’ place in Beaver Creek to give Happy a shot.”I had my kids with me,” Colecchia said. “(Ford) introduced himself to my kids. It was nice of him to come out like that.”
Support Local Journalism
Larson – not the Don Larsen who pitched the only perfect game in World Series history – had Secret Service clearance to come and go from Harry Bass’ house when the Fords stayed there.Around Christmas of 1976, Larson delivered some chemicals for the swimming pool while his friend John Moller was setting up the family Christmas tree. Larson noticed there were no presents under the tree.”I told John the president must have been bad this year,” Larson said. So Larson, an avid amateur photographer, went to his car and pulled out a couple of photos he had on hand.Unknown to Larson, Moller wrapped the photos and put them under the tree.A few weeks later, Larson got a personal thank-you note, written on White House stationary. Larson framed the note and hung it on his mantle. When his wife’s grandmother saw the letter, she complained that she’d been a loyal Republican her whole life, and wondered where her note was.Larson asked Moller for a favor, an autograph from Ford.Several weeks later, he received an autographed photo of Ford, made out to his wife’s grandmother.”She showed it off all around town,” he said.”He was a great guy. I’m going to miss him,” Larson said.
Menconi’s a Democrat these days, but in 1976, then a senior in high school, he helped campaign for Ford in Illinois.As a young volunteer, Menconi was up close during the Fords’ campaign stop in his home town of Joliet. He was also in the audience in Chicago on election night, when Ford lost the presidential election to Jimmy Carter.”At the time I said ‘This is awful,'” Menconi said.Years later, Menconi met Ford at the annual American Enterprise Institute World Forum at Beaver Creek.”I told him I’d campaigned for him and he just said, ‘I’m sorry that one didn’t work out the way we wanted it to,'” Menconi said.
