Michigan Church Has Been Preparing for Ford Funeral

c. 2006 Religion News Service EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ “Peace Be Unto You” is chiseled into the brick entryway to Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids. But the church wasn’t a house of serenity on Wednesday (Dec. 27). Phones rang with queries from reporters. Interim rector Nixon McMillan, vacationing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ “Peace Be Unto You” is chiseled into the brick entryway to Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids. But the church wasn’t a house of serenity on Wednesday (Dec. 27).

Phones rang with queries from reporters. Interim rector Nixon McMillan, vacationing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, headed back to the church. And music director John Hamersma prepared for his role on a national stage.


Grace will host Michigan’s first presidential funeral at 2 p.m. Wednesday. The church where Gerald R. Ford and Betty Bloomer married Oct. 15, 1948, has spent decades preparing for the day.

As the church’s organist and choirmaster for 32 years, Hamersma will be among the small number of people affiliated with the church who will have a role. He will play Grace’s 25-year-old mechanical-action pipe organ, accompanying the church’s 24-member choir.

Make that 22 members.

Dan and Sharlene Aument, of Grand Rapids, have been rehearsing a portfolio of hymns for the Ford funeral for more than a year, but won’t be on hand for the historic ceremony. They’re leaving Saturday for a vacation in Mexico.

“We’ve been prepping for this hyped performance for so long, and we’re both disappointed that now we’ll miss it,” Dan Aument said. “My wife really needs the vacation, though.”

It was unclear who would perform the service. Under an agreement with the Ford family, former rector Charles Howell had agreed to conduct it. But he left the parish in August to become rector at Christ Episcopal Church on Staten Island, N.Y.

“We are really host for the service,” Hamersma said. “The funeral is not so much a Grace Church funeral as a state funeral in Grace Church.”

Until about two years ago, the planned role for Hamersma and the Grace choir was limited to about five minutes. Hamersma said the current plan calls for 30 to 45 minutes of music and singing.


The funeral is expected to last about 90 minutes and will be open only to invited guests.

According to a detailed funeral plan prepared under the supervision of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, a pool of TV, newspaper and radio reporters will occupy the balcony of the church. The plan outlines specific locations for satellite trucks.

Visitation cards, funeral programs and other printed materials will be produced by local advertising agency Hanon McKendry, said Marty Allen, chairman emeritus of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation. “All the text is written. They’re just waiting for the dates.”

(Beth Loechler writes for The Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich. Kym Reinstadler contributed to this report.)

KRE/JL END LOECHLER

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