Henry Ford sitting in Quadricycle, 1946. All photos supplied by Henry Dominguez.
Henry Ford almost seemed larger than life, but the industrialist and founder of the company that carried his name proved just as mortal as the rest of us on April 7, 1947. In his latest book, The Last Days of Henry Ford, author Henry Dominguez charts Ford’s late life and death using first-hand accounts and original research. Dominguez sent along the following excerpt and photos from the book, which will be released December 1. To pre-order the book, visit Racemaker.com.
The once dynamic Henry Ford was on his last days. Suffering the ill effects of old age and several strokes, the once energetic “master of mass production” was now following his wife around their Fair Lane estate like a little puppy.
But there were days in 1946 and 1947 when he would become his old self again—lucid, energetic, and humorous. He was somewhat coherent when he attended the fiftieth anniversary celebration of his driving his first car, when he was initiated into the Automotive Hall of Fame, and when he visited Berry College. But he was particularly acute on his last day. Everyone there at the time said that old man Ford was “just like his old self.” Then tragedy struck.
***
As soon as Buhler had sent Rankin on his way, she rushed back upstairs, using the flashlight to guide her, and turning it off as soon as she entered the Fords’ bedroom. In the candlelight, she saw Clara sitting on the side of her bed facing Henry’s. Buhler walked around and sat down next to her.
“I saw right away that Mr. Ford was dying,” she recalled. “I just didn’t know what to tell Mrs. Ford. He was breathing very heavily, and I suggested to Mrs. Ford that we prop him up higher. He was uncomfortable.”
Henry Ford (L) and George Holley at the Automobile Golden Jubilee celebration, 1946.
Buhler went out into the porch off the bedroom and got a large pillow from the bed there. Then she and Clara took Henry’s arms, pulled him forward, and put the pillow behind him. He tried to speak, but couldn’t.
“He probably knew what was going on,” recalled Buhler. “He motioned that we put out the candles.”
Clara blew out the two candles, sending the bedroom into almost complete darkness. The candles burning in her dressing room cast a weak, barely visible light through the doorway.
“Do you think the doctor will be here soon?” Clara asked in the darkness.
Buhler turned her flashlight back on and shined it up toward the ceiling, allowing enough light for her and Clara to see Henry, but not enough to bother him.
“Well,” she answered, “if Rankin had to drive there, it would be a while…before they come. Or if he called…. I don’t know.”
By then, Henry’s breathing had slowed, and he seemed all right. But then his breathing became heavy again, and he started to toss and turn, and wanted to get up. Buhler laid the flashlight down on the bed, with its light facing Henry.
“Maybe another pillow to raise his head a little will help,” Buhler said.
Clara agreed.
Buhler rushed out to the porch again, grabbed another pillow, and propped Henry up some more.
“He seemed all right,” Buhler recalled, “but then he wanted to get up.”
They stood him up next to the bed, Clara on one side of him, Buhler on the other.
“He put his head on Mrs. Ford’s shoulder, just like a tired child,” Buhler recalled.
“Henry, speak to me!” Clara cried. “Henry, please speak to me!” But he said nothing.
Henry Ford (center) with his wife, Clara, and grandson, Henry Ford II, at the 35-year employee awards ceremony, December 1946.
They all stood there for a minute or so, then Henry’s heavy breathing stopped, and he collapsed in their arms. With her free arm, Clara pushed the two large pillows onto the floor, and they laid him back down on the bed.
Clara was frightened. “If only the doctor would come! What do you think of it?” she asked Buhler, hoping she would tell her that everything would be all right.
But Buhler knew better. “I think Mr. Ford is leaving us,” she said bluntly.
Clara didn’t grasp what Buhler had just said, or didn’t want to. “She seemed paralyzed,” recalled Buhler.
They both sat on Henry’s bed and watched him. But Buhler knew that the old man was dying, and that it would be better if Clara did not witness it. “The doctor will be here soon,” she told her, trying to give the impression that everything would be all right. “Maybe it would be good if you go first to get dressed. And, later on, when you come back, I go.”
While Clara was getting dressed, Buhler watched Henry from the foot of his bed. She was pointing the flashlight in his direction, but not directly in his face. Suddenly, he became calm—eerily calm.
“I could see the change on his face,” Buhler said, “and I prayed to myself, ‘Dear God, give me the assurance that all is well between you and Mr. Ford.’ I noticed the peace coming over Mr. Ford. He was at peace, yes. And I was concerned, somehow or another, to know if he was at peace with God. And then I had such a feeling of peace come over me. And he raised his hands up and folded his hands as if in prayer…. And then I felt as if he were saying to me, ‘Don’t ever leave Mrs. Ford.’ You know, he didn’t say it out loud, but as if he, in his spirit, was telling me that. And I heard myself say aloud, ‘No, I won’t leave her.’”
Clara heard her. “What, Buhler? Did you say something?”
“You’d better come out. I don’t know…. I don’t like the looks….”
Clara hurried into the bedroom.
“What do you think it is?” she asked, not realizing how serious the situation was. She was thinking that as soon as the doctor arrived, he would give Henry something, and everything would be fine.
“I think Mr. Ford is leaving us,” Buhler said again.
Henry Ford planting a tree in his honor at Berry College, March 1947.
Clara looked at her in disbelief. “Mrs. Ford couldn’t grasp it,” recalled Buhler, “I knew is was just a matter of a few moments.”
Clara and Buhler were both sitting across from Henry on Clara’s bed. Buhler put the flashlight down on the bed, it’s ray of light shining toward Henry’s face. She felt his pulse. There was none. Then she leaned over, put her head to Henry’s chest, and listened for a heartbeat. Not a sound.
“I think he has passed away,” she whispered to Clara, as if not wanting to wake Henry.
“Mr. Ford died on his own bed,” recalled Buhler, “and he didn’t say a word before he went.”
Clara Ford arriving at the Hamilton Funeral Home to pick out Henry Ford’s casket.
Clara got up and sat on the edge of Henry’s bed, took her husband in her arms, and caressed him gently. There was nothing the doctor could do now.
Buhler relit the candles on the nightstand. “I’ll get dressed and wait for the doctor in the library,” she said.
***
Ford’s public relations director, Charles Carll, notified the press. City Rooms of all the Detroit newspapers were unusually busy that evening as late scores from Monday’s off-year state elections were rolling in. But when Carll called the papers at 1:40 A.M., the election results immediately became secondary as the Free Press, the News, and the Times went to work readying the morning editions to announce the death of Henry Ford. After that, news of Henry’s death traveled quickly. Newsmen flooded the gates of the Ford estate, but the guards kept them out. One of the guards, who had just started his shift, called his wife: “I don’t know what time I’ll be home,” he said. “Mr. Ford just died.”
Throngs of people attended Henry Ford’s viewing held at Greenfield Village.
Condolences from family, friends, and the rich and powerful began pouring into Fair Lane as soon as people throughout the world learned of Henry’s death:
“In the sorrow which has come with such a sudden and unexpected force, I offer you and all those who mourn with you this assurance of deepest sympathy,” wrote President Truman.
“Mr. Ford led a full, a wonderful and inspiring life,” said Charles Lindbergh. “It was a great privilege to have known and worked with him.”
“The impact of Henry Ford’s inventive and productive genius on the well-being of America was incalculable,” wrote Alfred Sloan, chairman of General Motors. “He typified the best in American enterprise.”
Henry Ford’s funeral cortege passing the General Motors Building as it makes its way to the Ford Cemetery.
Paul Smith, managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, said that “Henry Ford was comparable only to Christopher Columbus in his impact on civilization in the west.”
But ordinary people as well, who had purchased Model T’s way back when and still owned them, and farmers whose lot Henry had lightened, sent letters and telegrams expressing their sympathy to Clara. The Detroit News said that so many telegrams poured into the Ford Motor Company’s telegraph office that messages had to be routed to telegraph offices in Dearborn, Ann Arbor, and neighboring cities. “Your beloved husband was just as much a tool of God’s Divine Plan as Moses,” wrote one well-wisher. “He was a giant in a day of giants,” wrote another.
Signs of respect began popping up all over Detroit and Dearborn. A large picture of Henry, big enough to be seen from the road and draped in mourning, was hung over the Woodward Avenue entrance to Detroit City Hall. Photographs of Henry were placed in all of the city’s 2,400 buses and streetcars. And Ford dealers throughout the country placed pictures of Henry, draped in mourning, in their showroom windows.
A guard stands vigilant over the Ford Cemetery. Henry Ford’s grave is at the right, with the wreath next to it.
For the next three days, Clara Ford was consumed with making arrangements for Henry’s viewing, his funeral, and his burial. Over 100,000 people waited in the rain on the grounds of Greenfield Village to view the motor magnate one last time, and thousands waited outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in Detroit, hoping to get a seat for the funeral service. Henry was buried in a muddy grave in the Ford family cemetery three days after he had died.
But just when Clara thought that the trying events were over, her attorneys told her that she did not own the cemetery in which her husband had just been buried.
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