Mary Roush (left) and Carole Horton are two of Betty Ford's “Denver Dolls,” good friends and supporters she got together with annually in Vail, Colo. / Janice Westom submitted photo
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Betty Ford called them “the Denver Dolls,” four women who came together in 1978 to provide her with emotional support and friendship after the former first lady completed treatment for alcohol and drug addiction.
Mary Roush, 79, the unofficial founder of the group, said Tuesday before the Palm Desert memorial service that the relationship lasted until Ford's death at age 93 on Friday.
“Betty had just completed treatment and didn't know anything about addiction and recovery,” Roush said as she prepared to go to Ford's funeral with Carole Horton, 77, another member of the group.
Back then, Roush, who now lives in Arizona, was a psychotherapist in Denver, specializing in addiction and family issues, and the Fords were spending the summer in Vail.
Roush was put in touch with the former first lady by Dr. Joseph Pursch, who had treated her at the Long Beach Naval Regional Medical Center, where she sought help after a family intervention.
“There were three other friends of mine involved with addiction recovery,” Roush said.
“We were invited and went up to dinner with the Fords. We met Susan and the dogs. We were blown over. What are we doing sitting at the table with Jerry and Betty Ford? But she was so real and so appreciative.”
That first visit turned into a tradition, Roush said, with the group regularly visiting Ford in Vail, usually the first week after Labor Day.
“We would go spend a long weekend at the house and in town,” she said. “We would laugh and shop and talk and eat. We always went to a (recovery) meeting. This went on for over 30 years.”
“Everything was a memory-maker,” said Horton, a longtime friend of Roush's who joined the Dolls after moving to Denver in 1981.
She recalled talking football with President Ford — “that was our thing,” she said.
And an afternoon when the group got caught in a Benetton clothing shop in Vail during a sudden cloudburst.
“Benetton had green plastic shopping bags,” Horton said. “Each of us was walking across street with green Benetton shopping bags on our heads. I still have a picture. Betty, she was going to get wet just like the rest of us.”
Ford's humility and genuineness were constant themes in both women's memories of her.
“She was a woman of her own convictions,” Horton said. “She believed in what she believed in; she wasn't afraid to say it out loud. She wasn't trying to impress anyone. She was living within her own conscience.”
A role model
Roush also saw Ford as a role model for people struggling with addiction. She never treated Ford as a psychotherapist, but she said they did talk about the impact addiction can have on families and children, conversations that may have shaped family programs at the Betty Ford Center.
“I was so glad when they put together the family program and children's program,” Roush said. “My son came to treatment at the Betty Ford Center eight years ago and is still sober. My husband and I came and went to the family program.”
Roush and Horton's visits with the former first lady dropped off after President Ford's death in 2006. Roush stayed in touch by phone, calling several times a year, she said.
Their last visit was three years ago, when they visited Rancho Mirage for Betty Ford's 90th birthday and had lunch at the Ford home in Thunderbird Country Club.
“We went out to the flagstone patio,” Roush recalled. “(There was) a beautiful tree; it was filled with tiny little Christmas lights.
“‘We turn those on every night so Jerry knows we're still here and waiting to join him,'” she remembered Ford saying.
“We're sad for ourselves, but happy for her and for Jerry that the wait is over,” Roush said.
K Kaufmann is a reporter for The Desert Sun. She can be reached at k.kaufmann@thedesertsun.com or (760) 778-4622. Follow on Twitter@kkaufmann.
