Obama pays tribute to a courageous first lady

Betty Ford, the first lady whose openness about her personal battles with breast cancer, drugs and alcohol helped shatter U.S. social taboos on such issues, died Friday at the age of 93.

The former model and dancer was the wife of Gerald Ford, U.S. president from August 1974 to January 1977. She famously danced on the Cabinet Room table on her husband's last full day in the White House.

She died at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs and is expected to be buried in Michigan alongside her husband at his namesake library in Grand Rapids. Gerald Ford died in 2006.

President Barack Obama paid tribute to the woman who will perhaps be best remembered for founding a treatment center for substance abuse that has helped thousands of people including some of America's biggest stars.

In a White House statement, Obama said Ford was a courageous advocate for women's health and women's rights, the AP reported.

She "distinguished herself through her courage and compassion," he said.

Ford had helped break down social stigma about addiction and had inspired thousands to seek treatment through organizations such as the Betty Ford Center.

The Washington Post wrote that Ford was not a political woman but "made a liberating adventure out of her 30 months as first lady."

To the surprise of some and the consternation of others, Mrs. Ford evolved as an activist first lady whose non-threatening manner coupled with her newfound celebrity provided the women’s movement an impressive ally. Undaunted by critics, she campaigned for ratification of the ill-starred Equal Rights Amendment, championed liberalized abortion laws and lobbied her husband to name more women to policymaking government jobs.

“Perhaps it was unusual for a first lady to be as outspoken about issues as I was, but that was my temperament, and I believed in it,” she said in an interview for this story at her Rancho Mirage, Calif., home in 1994. “I don’t like to be dishonest, so when people asked me, I said what I thought.”