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 DID YOU KNOW?
 
Did you know 
……that in Dearborn, Michigan--birthplace of Henry Ford in 1863, there is the
Henry FordElementary School
,
Henry FordMuseum, Ford Community and PerformingArts Center, Henry Ford Centennial Library,Edsel Ford High School,
 
Fordson HighSchool
(celebrating its 75th anniversary thisyear),
Henry Ford Community College, HenryFord Retirement
 
 Village, William FordElementary School
(William Ford was HenryFord's father), the
Fair
 
Lane Estate
(home of Henry and Clara Ford),
Ford Road, FordWoods Park
and
Ford Field
(the Dearbornplayfield, as opposed to the football stadium). Additionally, the Ford family donated the landon which the
University of Michigan-Dearborn
 campus is located, adjacent to the Fair LaneEstate, where Henry Ford died in 1947.…that in the city of Detroit there is the
Edsel Ford Freeway
(I-94), the
Henry FordHospital
,
Henry Ford High School
, the
WalterBuhl Ford
Building of the College for CreativeStudies @ Wayne State University (opened in2001 with a $20 million donation from WalterBuhl Ford's wife,
Josephine Ford
, the onlygranddaughter of Henry Ford);
FordAuditorium
and
Ford Field,t
he downtown home of the National FootballLeague's
Detroit Lions
(owned by William ClayFord, Sr. since 1962) and site of the
NFL SuperBowl
in
2006
.…that
Motown Records
founder
Berry Gordy,Jr
., once worked at a Ford assembly plant andused Henry Ford's assembly-line technique tomass produce hit records in Detroit beginning inthe late 1950s, with teams of songwriters,producers, arrangers, musicians (including theDetroit Symphony Orchestra strings) andsingers. The Motown singing group Martha andthe Vandellas filmed one of the first-ever musicvideos in 1965 at the Ford Dearborn AssemblyPlant, singing their 1965 #1 hit "Nowhere toRun", while climbing in and out of FordMustangs coming down the assembly line.…that there were two popular hits in the 1960sthat extolled Ford vehicles: The first, of course,was the
Beach Boys
"Fun, Fun, Fun" (CapitolRecords) in 1963, which sent the
Ford Thunderbird
into national pop lore. Thesecond was in 1965, recorded by the AtlanticRecords R&B star
Wilson "Wicked" Pickett
,and the song was none other than "
MustangSally
" which sent the then-new
Ford Mustang
 into national pop lore along with the T-Bird (asample of the lyrics: "...I bought you a brandnew Mustang, a 1965, now you're running'round signifying, woman, and don't want to letme ride...."). "Mustang Sally now baby"...all rightnow.…that Detroit's own (born in Memphis, butraised in Detroit), Bloomfield Hills-resident
 Aretha Franklin
, is the voice behind the firstseries of "Crazy 'bout a Mercury" televisioncommercials, joining other Ford-related commercial voices such as Country star
Alan Jackson
("Crazy 'bout a Ford Truck") and,the latest, Country star
Toby Keith
, who iscoming to the Henry Ford II World Center inDearborn on Ford's 100th birthday weekend(June 12 - 16, 2003) to perform in concert."....gonna buy me a Mercury - cruise on downthe road" (I already did)........shooooot......…that in February, 1941, Henry Ford acquiredadditional land to a plot he already owned near Ypsilanti, Michigan in a sleepy hamlet calledWillow Run, named after the creek that ran
 
through it. Part of the land had been in use as asummer camp for underprivileged boys.In April of 1941, ground was broken forconstruction of an airplane factory. Renownedarchitect Albert Kahn drew up the plans. Thecost, which had been set at $11 million, rose to$47 million. By September, the Ford Willow RunB-24 Liberty Bomber plant had been completed,with 3.5 million square feet of factory space, thelargest in the world. Charles Lindbergh called itthe Grand Canyon of the mechanized world.Frederick A. Delano, uncle of President FranklinRoosevelt, was put in charge of organizinghomes for the expected 100,000 workers. Aplan for a "Bomber City" was designed byarchitect Oskar Stonorov. He attacked singlefamily homes as "fortresses of individualism"and proposed project-style housing. WhenHenry Ford refused to sell the land for this, theplan was abandoned and dormitories were built.Transporting workers to the plant was anotherproblem. Ultimately, a highway was built in1943 to ease the commute from Detroit, and theMichigan Central ran trains to the site.The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941 threw the United States into World War II,spurring a huge increase in aircraft production,as well as tanks and military vehicles. Thegovernment banned civilian auto production. ByJune of 1942, 66 percent of Detroit's machinetools were being used for military goods.On October 1, 1942, the first plane wascompleted and christened 'The Spirit of  Ypsilanti." Its $300,000 cost was paid for with afund-raising drive by the townspeople of  Ypsilanti, who bought war bonds and stamps. At its peak in June of 1943, the plant had 42,331 workers. In August, production was up to231 planes a month. By the end of that year,Willow Run was producing 365 B-24s a monthand by the end of 1944, it was up to 650 amonth. By 1945, Ford Motor Company wasproducing 70 percent of all B-24s in two shifts aday at nine hours each.Willow Run produced 8,685 B-24s before itclosed in 1945, helping Detroit to be known asthe Arsenal of Democracy. A large part of thatarsenal was Henry and Edsel Ford and theirFord Motor Company*.…that, in October 1915, the {now} world-renowned Henry Ford Hospital opened its doorsto patients in the city of Detroit at what was thenthe edge of the city at Hamilton and West GrandBoulevards (the John C. Lodge Freeway did notexist at that time). A private patient buildingaccommodated 48 patients, and several othersmall buildings housed the surgical pavilion,research quarters, kitchens and laundryfacilities, the power plant and a garage. Thehospital was financed and built by
Henry Ford
,who organized a closed staff of physicians andsurgeons, many of whom came from JohnsHopkins in Baltimore, Maryland.Within two years, construction of a largerbuilding began on the same 20-acre site. Theshell of this incomplete building was turned overto the federal government in 1918 for use as U.S. Army General Hospital No. 36, whichprovided care for returning veterans of WorldWar I while the Henry Ford Hospital staff wereaway in military service. After the war, the50,000 square foot building was completed,opening in 1921 and providing 500 new bedsfor the growing Detroit community. The staff grew over the years, and its threefoldcommitment to patient care, research andmedical education built on traditions whichcame with that original staff from JohnsHopkins.In 1925, a 300 room Nurses Home, named for
Clara Bryant Ford
, was opened to housestudents of the newly formed Henry FordHospital School of Nursing. The diplomaschool offered training in basic sciences andnursing practice, graduating more than 5,000students in the ensuing 71 years of itsoperation. The school was known for its highstandards and excellence in education andpractice, and "Ford grads" were easilyrecognized by their unique caps, as well as fortheir skillful care of patients. Sadly, this Schoolof Nursing closed in 1996.The
Edsel B. Ford
Institute for MedicalResearch was established in 1947 (in 1990, thehospital's academic and research activities werebrought together under the umbrella of the
 
newly formed Henry Ford Health SciencesCenter).In the 1970s the hospital began expansion of services into the entire Detroit metropolitanarea, eventually opening six suburban centers,including a specialty center for the treatment of chemical and alcohol dependency.Improvements at the Detroit campus includedthe construction of the
Benson Ford
Educationand Research Building; a 190 unit apartmentbuilding for house officers and their families; a210,000 square foot addition called the
EleanorClay Ford
Pavilion opened in 1982, housingnew operating rooms, modern emergency roomfacilities, intensive care units and radiologyfacilities.In 1983, the hospital's Board of Trusteesreorganized its corporate structure into theHenry Ford Health Care Corporation; by 1990,with added affiliations with Cottage, Wyandotteand Kingswood Hospitals and an HMO knownas Health Alliance Plan, the corporationestablished the Henry Ford Health System, thename by which it is known today.When you walk into the main lobby of the HenryFord Hospital, look up toward the ceiling: Thereyou will find inscribed, in a sort of "Ring of Honor", the names of all of the chief financialbenefactors and board members of the hospital.Many of these names, as you would imagine,belong to the several branches and generationsof the Ford family who chose to give back totheir community -- the same community fromwhom they derived the basis of theirconsiderable wealth. The city of Detroit and thestate of Michigan are all the many ways richerfor this family and their generosity over theselast 100 years**.…that only two of 
Henry Ford's
grandchildrenhad middle names and they were both thesame: They were
Josephine Clay
 
Ford
(whohas a daughter named
Josephine
--and adaughter named
Eleanor
) and
William ClayFord, Sr
., who were the two youngest (theirelder brothers were
Henry Ford II
and
BensonFord, Sr
.). Their middle names were in tribute totheir mother's family - their mother being Mrs.
Eleanor Clay Ford
. Of course, we all knowwhose middle name of Clay in that family is nowthe most famous, don't we? Speaking of Eleanor Clay Ford......that
Eleanor Clay Ford
(who in the 1950s andbeyond was the Number One matron of GrossePointe and Detroit society and the chief financialbenefactress of the Detroit Institute of Arts andthe Henry Ford Hospital (following the death of her mother-in-law
Clara Bryant Ford
in1950) was also a member of another famousDetroit family: the Hudsons, who ran the then-famous J. L. Hudson's Department store, whichwas for many years until the early 1970s THEdepartment store in the metropolitan Detroitarea. Hudson's has now been absorbedby (and is now known as) the Marshall FieldCompany. The world's largest American flagwas displayed annually for many years on FlagDay at the downtown Woodward Avenue store(which I and other Detroit natives have suchfond memories of) and which was mercifullytorn down a few years ago (at the time, thelargest building to be imploded in the nation)and the land now sits adjacent to the excitingnew Compuware complex, which will open inJune, 2003....that the names Henry and Edsel are an every-other generation thing within the Fordfamily: Following Henry Ford I was his son,Edsel Bryant Ford I, followed by his son, HenryII, followed by his son, Edsel Bryant II, followedby his son, Henry III, who has just attainedadulthood. It will be interesting to see if thetradition continues....every other branch of theother siblings has juniors....notice that all of theEdsels, by the way, have or had the middlename of Bryant, the family name (or maidenname) of Henry Ford's wife, Clara.... that there are some great Ford family picturesin the 2002 Ford Motor Company AnnualReport, which is historic and which those of youwho received it should treasure. Check out theFord family on pages A1 - A8, especially the2002 Ford Family picture on page A8; as well asthe pictures on the inside front cover depictingthe four Ford family members who have chairedFord Motor Company during the first 100 years:Henry Ford, Edsel Ford, Henry Ford II andWilliam Clay Ford, Jr.
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