Betty Ford body flown to Michigan for burial

LOS ANGELES—The body of former US first lady Betty Ford was flown Wednesday from California to Michigan, where she is to be buried next to her husband, former president Gerald Ford.

A day after three former US first ladies attended a funeral service in Palm Desert, California, a motorcade took her casket to Palm Springs airport for the flight by C-32 military aircraft to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Her body will lie in repose Wednesday evening and Thursday morning at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Michigan, before being interred next to her late husband, who died in 2006.

On Tuesday, former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan and Rosalynn Carter, as well as current First Lady Michelle Obama and former president George W. Bush, attended a service for Ford, who died last week aged 93.

Ex-president Bill Clinton was to have been at the California service, but was prevented by a mechanical problem with his plane in New York, and was expected to pay his respects in Michigan.

Ford, who co-founded the Betty Ford center in Rancho Mirage, California, in 1982 after suffering from cancer and addiction problems herself, died on Friday at the nearby Eisenhower Medical Center.

President Barack Obama led tributes to her last week, praising her “courage and compassion” for speaking openly about her fight with breast cancer and drug and alcohol addiction, and then working to help others battle their demons.