PRESIDENT GERALD R. FORD - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 11/01/1982 - HFSID 41847

GERALD R. FORD
"The total scouting experience...helped me on the road that eventually led to the Presidency."
Typed Letter Signed: "Gerald R. Ford", 1p, 7¼x10½. No place, but probably Rancho Mirage, California, 1982 November 1. To Brian G. Kathenes, Milltown, N.J. In full: "Thinking back over my scouting years, I find it difficult to extract any one particular incident that helped to shape my career. I firmly believe it was the total scouting experience that helped me on the road that eventually led to the Presidency. There is no other organization anywhere in the world which stands for greater qualities of leadership than scouting does. In my own life, I know that if I've had any success at all, a good deal of the credit must be given to some of the lessons I learned as I was advancing up the path to Eagle Scout. Wearing the scouting insignia tells the world that you are someone special, and, for the rest of your life, many people will expect far more from you than just ordinary performance in anything you decide to undertake. It creates a commitment to the pursuit of excellence which can be attained by incorporating the scouting ideals in your daily life. Thank you, Brian, for giving back to scouting some of which scouting has given you." Gerald R. Ford, Jr., earned his Eagle Scout award when he was 14 in Troop 15 in Grand Rapids, Michigan in November 1927. He was the first President to be an Eagle Scout, the highest level in Scouting. Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1913 as Leslie Lynch King, Jr. His parents had separated two weeks after his birth and his mother took him to Grand Rapids, Michigan to live with her parents. They were divorced in 1915 and, in 1916, Dorothy King married Gerald Rudolff Ford, a Grand Rapids paint salesman. The Fords began calling her son Gerald R. Ford, Jr., although his name was not legally changed until 1935. The younger Ford changed the spelling of his middle name to "Rudolph". Fine condition.