Gifts For Berkeley's Future
Bequest

A Family Connection

"Even though you're not an alumnus, we're happy you found a home at Cal." With these words, former Chancellor Robert Berdahl aptly characterized the deep attachment Bill Ford has felt toward UC Berkeley for more than six decades. Indeed, Bill's connection to Cal — originating through his late wife, Grace '37 — has always been, first and foremost, a family one, as well as a cherished constant in a life of changing places and circumstances.

Bill was born in 1915 on a farm near Trenton, Missouri, one of five children. When he was three years old, his family moved into a house in the city given to them by his maternal grandfather. The first major disruption of Bill's life occurred only a few years later. His father developed serious health problems and, when Bill was just eight, passed away. Though his great grandfather had been one of the founders of Trenton, the death left the family "in a big house with no money," as Bill puts it. Soon, he was sent to live with his grandfather on his nearby farm and attend a rural school.

Bill graduated from high school in the summer of 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression. That August, when his mother asked him if he wanted to go to California, he didn't hesitate. "How do I get to California?" he replied. In September, he was on a train with a ticket a relative had bought for him.

Once in California, an uncle helped him find work with the Matson Line — and so, within a month of his arrival, he was off again, working as a bellhop on the Lurline bound for the South Pacific and Asia. The three-and-a-half-month cruise was exhilarating, taking the inexperienced 18-year-old to places he had only imagined — Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, Bali, New Guinea, Jakarta, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, China, and Japan. "I was from a small town," he explains. "I didn't know anything. But I learned about people and real life." He made 25 trips to Hawaii on the Lurline before leaving in 1935 to take a job, for $18 a week, as a salesman for a Western Auto Supply store in Oakland.

Bill had a steady job, but he knew he would need more education to get ahead. So while he worked, first at Western Auto and then at General Electric Supply in San Francisco, he took night business classes at Merritt College. It was at Merritt in 1939 that he met his future wife, Grace Haldeman.

Grace, who was born and raised in Oakland, had graduated from Cal in 1937 with a degree in art. While she found her major personally fulfilling, it didn't help her find employment. As a result, she began to attend night school to study economics — and came into contact with Bill. In the course of things, the two began dating and grew close. They were married on May 16, 1942, just after Bill was drafted by the Army Air Corps.

Bill's time in the Air Corps brought another major change — one that would affect the rest of his life. Sent to a technical school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he began radio training that required him to listen all day to Morse code, at approximately 90 decibels, through headphones. He "flunked out," as he says, because he quickly developed severe hearing loss — a condition that would grow worse over time. The immediate consequence was that Bill was sent to a different airbase and went from wearing headphones to fixing airplanes. After he received a Certified Disability Discharge in March 1944, the Veterans Administration determined that the Air Corps was responsible for his hearing loss and gave him the first of a series of hearing aids he would have over the following six decades.

Bill and Grace both went on to have successful careers. In 1972, she retired from her administrative position with the Oakland School District, where she had been employed for 33 years. In 1974, he retired as a senior analyst in Chevron's San Francisco office, a position he had held since 1959. All the while, however, they maintained the close connection to Cal that they shared from the beginning of their time together.

As a Berkeley student, Grace had loved watching Cal sports, especially football. She had driven with friends to Pasadena to see the 1937 "Thunder Team" defeat Alabama (13–0) in the Rose Bowl. When Bill met her a year later, he hadn't been attending Cal games — but she soon changed that. Except for Bill's time in the service, the two went to home games regularly and traveled to two of the three Rose Bowl appearances ('48, '49, '50) that the Bears made under legendary coach Pappy Waldorf. To this day, Grace's influence has stuck: Bill, a 3 Cal Futures veteran season ticket–holder, has now attended every home football game since 1946. He sums up his connection to Cal by calling it "one of the most important things I ever did."

The couple always intended to leave a significant bequest to the University. "What better place?" they said to themselves. But it was only when Grace was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the late '90s that the two felt a new urgency about supporting "their" alma mater. Chiefly, they created a living trust that says "everything" will eventually go to Cal. In the meantime, Bill has made generous gifts to the William F. and Grace H. Ford Chancellor's Millennium Fund at the UC Berkeley Foundation and to the Memorial Stadium Renovation Project. "Working with the University" on these gifts, he says, "has been enjoyable all the way."

Bill has many reasons to support Cal. There is the close connection he feels to his "home" university. He feels proud of the contributions that Berkeley makes to the world through pioneering research and first-class education. ("Everything I read says that Cal is unsurpassed.") And as one who knows firsthand the difference education makes in providing career opportunities, he is passionate about helping students afford a Cal degree. ("That is essential — to direct some of my giving toward scholarships.")

And yet, none of these is his chief reason for being so generous to Berkeley. What is? Bill's answer is direct and simple: "Grace. She loved the place. She probably could have gone to school there the rest of her life. Throughout her life, she was always going back to her yearbook to look people up." It is the beloved companion with whom he shared nearly 60 years of marriage that Bill honors today in his True Blue support of Cal. And all of the Cal family is richer for it.

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