On July 14, 1913, future United States President Gerald R. Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska, securing his unique historical place as the only American president born in the Cornhusker State. Visually captured in a charming 1916 childhood portrait at three years old, his early life appeared peaceful, masking a tumultuous domestic environment that completely reshaped his identity.
The hidden, deeply personal layer of Ford’s childhood was that he was not actually born with the name Gerald Ford. He was born Leslie Lynch King Jr., but his mother fled Nebraska just sixteen days after his birth to escape her husband’s extreme domestic abuse. She moved to Michigan, where she married a compassionate paint salesman named Gerald Rudolff Ford; though the future president was raised under his stepfather’s name from infancy, he didn’t legally change it until 1935, long after discovering the truth about his biological father.
Image of Gerald R. Ford in 1916 when he was about 3 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
