July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947
Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and the person responsible for developing and manufacturing the first affordable automobile available to middle class Americans. He was born in Dearborn, Michigan and had an early interest in the mechanics of how things worked.
It is said that the Ford Motor Company was founded with an initial investment of $28,000, which was contributed by some of Mr. Ford’s friends and neighbors.1 When Mr. Ford passed, “Most of his personal estate, valued at $205 million, went to the Ford Foundation, which had been set up in 1936 as a means of retaining family control of the firm. Today it’s one of the world’s largest public trusts.”2
Mr. Ford was survived by his wife, Clara, but had been predeceased by his only son, Edsel Ford, who died in 1943.
1Henry Ford is Dead at 83 in Dearborn
2Tod Benoit, Where Are They Buried? (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.), 512.
