FAMOUS MAN'S WIFE

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23316, 30 April 1941, Page 8

FAMOUS MAN'S WIFE

MRS FORD HELPED IN EARLY EXPERIMENTS DETRIOT, March 24. .. To love, honour, and obey ” That was the vow of Clara Bryant in the parlour of her farm home in Greenfield, suburb of Detroit, on April 11, 1888. Her groom was Henry Ford, son of a neighbouring farmer. Clara Bryant had no visions at the time of the enormous wealth and world renown that were to come to her husband; she wanted only to be a helpful wife and a sustaining influence to her husband. When Mr Ford made his first experiments with an improvised internal combustion engine, Mrs Ford did not complain that he cluttered up her kitchen with tools, oil cans, pieces of pipe, and other material and used her sink as work bench; she helped him. When he started to build his first “horseless carriage” in their barn and acquaintances ridiculed his efforts, it was Mrs Ford who kept telling him it would go. And when it did go—to the accompaniment of much backfiring and clattering of wheels and gears—Mrs Ford rode at her husband’s side. Mrs Ford is as democratic as her husband. She dislikes to talk about herself and the part she had in helping Mr Ford to success in his early experiments. It was the natural thing to do, she indicates. She waited upon her husband in those early days, when he often let dinners grow cold while he continued his tinkering ... "I never went to bed until he came in. He’d often work until after midnight, but I sat up and waited for him.” Down through the years Mrs Ford has made it a rule to breakfast with her husband every morning unless some insurmountable obstacle prevents . . . "I believe it is a better and pleasanter start for the day for both of us.” T: secret of happiness, she believes “is to lead as natural and as kindly a life as one can.” To Mrs Ford the business of being a wife is a “full-sized job and contemplates many things that a lot of people ovevkok." She makes a sharp distinction between “housekeeping” and “homt keeping." That means, she says, “being cheerful and generous and understanding your husband and your children) it means planning things that will make your children warft to stay home because home is interesting.” Mrs Ford perhaps is best described as “unobtrusive.” She dresses quietly, almost invariably in dark-coloured gown and coat. Like her husband, she never has sought a prominent part in Detroit's social activities, but as a lifelong resident of the community her friends and acquaintances are numbered in the hundreds.