Evening Star Newspaper, November 8, 1931, Page 91

ENRY FORD may be the richest man in the world, and one of the most famous to boot, but the story of his _ family's early history has not so far been given a great deal of public attention. Every schooboy can tell how the motor king passed his‘géuth on a farm, experimented for years with his automobile, and finally became the world’s leading automobile magnate. Few, however, know of the adventures of the Ford family before that date. Where the Fords came from, and how, is not generally known. But the early history of the family is fully as interesting as the story of Henry Ford's rise to greatness. It is a chapter out of the great American pioneer epic; and it is made up chiefly of reminiscences handed down to her daughter by Alice e Ford, a great-aunt of Henry Ford, who crossed the ocean in an im- migrant ship nearly a century ago and who lived through the early struggles of the Ford family in the days when Detroit was an outpost in the wilderness. Alice Goode Ford has been dead for several years now. But her daughter, Alice Ford Ken- nedy, died only recently, and before her death she retold many of the tales her mother had told her, giving the background to the story of Detroit’s famous motor king. EARLY a century ago three brothers— George, Samuel and John Ford—were liv- ing near Cork, Ireland; near the spot, by the way, where the great Ford factory now looms as one of the greatest industrial plants in Ire- land. Times were hard in Ireland then, and—like many of their fellows—the three Fords decided to try their luck in America. John Ford was married and had a son, a small boy named William. When the three brothers set sail, John Ford's wife and his son went along. Not far from the Ford’s home near Cork lived the Goode family. Alice Goode, as it hap- pened, then a girl of 17, joined the migration to America at about the same time that the Fords did—although she did not at that time know the Fords. ‘The trip to America was long and arduous. Tmmigrants in those days traveled below decks on stuffy sailing vessels. Their quarters were bare, cold, damp and fearfully overcrowded. Many passengers died because of the rigors of the trip; and among those who never reached the new world was the wife of John Ford. At the time of her death the ship happened to bz passing a little island; and because the pascengers knew that most of the bodies thrown into the sea were destroyed by sharks they prevailed on the captain to stop and give Mrs. Ford’'s body Christian burial on the dry land. A few years ago, it is said, Henry Ford man- aged to find this little island. He made every effort to locate the grave of the young Irish woman who had been buried there—for she was his grandmother—but he failed. FTER a trip of more than five weeks, the ship reached Quebec, where the Ford brothers landed. John Ford and his son, Wil- liam, who was later to be the father of Henry Ford, tarried there a little while; but George and Samuel, hearing of fortunes to be made on the rich, unclaimed farm lands across the United States border, made Detroit their goal, and set out at ance. Traveling to Detroit from Qucbec called for real enterprise then. The two brothers had to walk all the way to Rochester, N. Y., seek- ing shelter at night in the rude farm houses along the way or sleeping out in the open, making their way through forests where hostiie Indians had roamed within the memory of Niving men. At Rochester they waited for a while; and there they met Alice Goode, who, with her relatives, had also come down from Quebec afooi. The details of the romance that fol- lowed have -not been preserved, but it must have been a case of love at first sight, for a short time later Alice Goode became the wife of George Ford. Frcm Rochester they proceeded to Detroit, traveling by boat through the Erie Canal—then newly opened—and Lake Erie. Arriving in Detroit, George and Alice Ford took up their residence on Jefferson avenue, while Samuel Ford took a plot of 80 acres of Government land outside of town. A little later George Ford took a similar tract of land adjoining Samuel's. He imme- diately set to work to build a log cabin there, THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., NOVEMBER 8, 1931 Henry Ford’s Cousins and His Aunts One of the Ford family reunions, photographed at the home of Oliver Ford, near Y psilantig Mich. ; The First Ford Family Arriving in America Walked From Quebec to Rochester,and Their Descendants Ride Annually to Ypsilanti. The two brothers had to walk all the way from Quebec to Rochester, making their way through forests where hostile Indians had roamed recently. and when it was finished he rode into Detroit on horseback, leading another horse on which Alice Ford rode back with him to their new home.. Shortly thereafter, John Ford joined the others, settling on a farm not far away. LTHOUGH the name “Ford” was later to to become a synonym for r:hes, these pioneer farmers lived under conditions of real poverty. George Ford had to cut down the trees of which he built his house, and after it had been erected his young wife gathered moss and chinked in the spaces between the logs to make it weatherproof. Not far from the Fords’ homes there was a large village of Indians. They were no longer on the war path; but new arrivals from over- seas were not too sure of that, and it was sev- eral years before they felt comfortable with their savage neighbors. The first time Alice Ford saw the Indians they had been skinning deer which they had slain in the nearby forests, and their hands were red with blood. Mrs. Ford took one look at them and fainted. She told her children, years later, that she thought they were on a scalping party .and had éome to kill all the whites in the vicinity. 4 However, if Mrs. Ford fainted at the sight ef the Indians, that is the only occasion on record when she showed any weakness, Merey to en- 13 dure the long trip across the ocean called for & stamina and & power of endurance such as few modern women possess; and the long trip from Quebec to Rochester, made on foot, is abundant testimony that this great-aunt of Henry Ford was in no way a weakling. It is said that al- though she lived to the age of 82 she was never sick a day in her life until her final illness. Her memory of that trip from Quebec to Rochester, it is said, always made her hospitable to any travelers who chanced to seek food or shelter at the Ford home. On that early jour- ney she and her family had had to ask the hospitality of farmers along the way, and she never turned away any one who asked a similar favor after she was established in her ewn home. P the house was crude and the woods were full of Indians, pioneer life had its compen< sations. The fields abounded with wild turkeys, which provided plenty of game for the bill of - fare, and if the Indians cculd kill deer, so could the whites. The wolves, however, were s nuisance, and in order to save their pigs and cattle from these roaming marauders the Fords hacd to nail shut the doors of their barns at night—and, for a long time, had to take turns standing guard at night, gun in hand, so bold were the wolves. Nine children were reared on the Ford farm, and every Sunday George Ford would hitch up his team and drive the family into Detroit to church. They attended the famous Old Mari- ners’ Church, still standing, and now used as & haven for unemployed men. Mrs. Alice Ford Kennedy, Alice Ford's daugh- ter, who died recently, used to say that the Sunday trip to church was always a big event in the family. All of the children piled into the back of the big wagon and Mr. and Mrs. Ford sat on the front seat, Mr. Ford wearing a high plug hat. “Whenever you see Henry Ford in an eld- time parade,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “he wears Father’s old plug hat. He keeps it hanging on the old hat rack in the house where he was born.” Samuel Ford was the first of the three brothers. to replace his log cabin with a frame house. Some time later, when he became more prosperous, he moved this house across the road to a vacant field and built a new and more pretentious home. FOR years the first frame house stood idle, crumbling to decay, used only occasionally for storing corn or other farm produce. Then, a few years ago, Henry Ford bought the entire property. He wrecked the newer house—which had been a tribute to rising fortune, in its day —moved the old one back to its original site, restored it and refurnished it exactly as it used to be. The old picket fence that used to sur- round it has been rebuilt, so that the farm today looks just about as it did in the old days. Meanwhile, young William Ford, the som of John, had grown to manhood and had married Mary Litogot, an orphan girl who had been reared by Pat O’Hearn and his wife, neighbor- ing farmers. She died in 1876, at the age of 37—having borne the child who was to become the world’s richest man. At the time of her death the family was living in a substantial red brick home—a building which is still standing. Henry Ford was about 13 at the time, and it is recorded that his father, William Ford, greatly lamented the fact that it seemed hopeless to try to make a farmer out of him. After the mother's death one of Henry Ford’s sisters, Margaret, now Mrs. Ruddiman, acted as housekeeper and “mother” for the family. TODAY the home is maintained in its original condition. Henry Ford has searched the country for furniture in order to make the in- terior of the house look exactly as it did when he was a boy. He is said to spend many hours there in his leisure, and occasionally he invites a close friemd to have dinner with him there, Incidentally, as an illuftration of the frugale ity and financial independence of the early Fords, it was discovered recently when the farm of George Ford came up for sale that it had never been mortgaged, through all the years of its occupancy. It is worth noting, too, that the land for which George Ford paid the Gov- ernment $2.50 an acre sold a few years for nearly $3,200 an acre. . Today the people who remember those pio- neer days are gone. Mrs. Kennedy, who brought most of these tales to light, has gome Continued on Seventeenth Page