William Edwin Ford

William (Bill) Edwin Ford, age 99, died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Hudson, in the early morning of Saturday, November 8, 2025. He is survived by his oldest son William of Dalian, China, and his youngest son Andrew & daughter-in-law Sandy, of Denver, Colorado. He was pre-deceased by his wife of 56 years, Georgeanna Croft Ford-by 23 years, and by his middle son, Thomas Patton Ford, by 16 years.

Bill was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, the youngest of 4 children, and at the age of 5, he lost his father to pneumonia and diabetes. Bill then moved with his mother and 3 siblings to south central Michigan where the Ford family had a presence for 4 generations and his paternal great grandfather and great uncle had owned a farm. His mother was able to secure employment as both a high school English teacher and town librarian.

After graduating from Hillsdale High School at 17, Bill enlisted during World War II at the Naval Station Great Lakes training center but suffered a back injury and was released from service. He went on to earn a B.S. degree in chemistry from Hillsdale College. He applied to medical school at the University of Michigan, and while accepted, he could not afford the tuition.

Instead, he taught high school chemistry and then found work as a chemist in the Mare Island Naval Station in Vallejo, California. Afterwards he worked in the lab at the Jackson Michigan, Goodyear tire factory. In 1955 he moved to the Akron area where he remained for most of the rest of his life in executive positions first at Colombian Carbon (later purchased by Cities Service), engaged in supplying carbon black and synthetic rubber to the tire and rubber industries, and then at NRM (later purchased by VMI), as supplier of manufacturing equipment to the tire industry and that gave him a greatly valued opportunity to travel extensively throughout the world. After retirement, he gave seminars as a Goodyear endowed chair at Kent State University's business school and truly loved teaching.

Bill was an avid golfer, working methodically and diligently across seven decades to develop a "Ben Hogan" swing, and many remarked, what an impressive golf swing it was. A low-handicapper, Bill golfed regularly at Fairlawn and Portage Country Clubs as well as annually at Pine Valley in New Jersey and at his favorite West Coast golf course, Cypress Point. In his 80s he took up bicycling and often cycled from Hudson through the Cuyahoga Valley to play golf at Fairlawn then cycling home. He also went on a cycling adventure that took him up and over The Going To the Sun Highway in Montana's Glacier National Park, and he revilled in a multi-day raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

Another great passion Bill had was fine wood-working, handcrafting Colonial and Shaker reproductions in his well equipped basement wood shop. He was surrounded up to the end in his home with a large collection of his beautiful furniture. Reading every evening and playing the piano were also important parts of his very active life. As the youngest of 4 children, he survived his brothers and sister but maintained contact with all his nieces and nephews spread across the country and the world and initiated regular reunions that he also attended.

He truly enjoyed engaging with people including in the many restaurants in Hudson where he ate almost every week for many of his last years. Bill was aware of how difficult it is to summarize or comment on a life after someone has died. In that respect, he very much admired how Winston Churchill stated (perhaps charitably), this difficulty during his funeral oration for Neville Chamberlain: "It is not given to human beings - happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable - to see or predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events."

Bill was a wonderful father and uncle and he will be greatly missed. He had a great sense of humor and spirit of life, but told one of his nieces a few weeks ago when asked if he had any new jokes, "No, I've told all the jokes I know."

Details will be provided later of a memorial service to be held on the occasion of what would have been his 100th birthday on March 9, 2026. Arrangements by Busch-Romito Funeral Home of Hudson. www.buschcares.com