Josephine Clay Ford

Josephine Clay "Dody" Ford (née Ford; July 7, 1923 – June 1, 2005) was an American philanthropist and the only granddaughter of Henry Ford.

Her father was the only child of Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company.

Personal life

In 1943, she married Walter Buhl Ford II (1920–1991, not a relative) whose family were prominent in the chemical business in the downriver suburbs of Detroit. He was a descendant of the other prominent families of Detroit including the banking Fords, the Buhl family and Brush family.

Walter Buhl Ford III (1943–2010) Eleanor Clay "Nonie" Ford Sullivan (b. 1946), who was married to Frederic Avery Bourke Jr. in 1967. Bourke is a part owner of Dooney & Bourke, the leather company. They divorced and she remarried, to John Sullivan Jr., and lives at 960 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Josephine Clay "Joey" Ford Ingle (b. 1949), Alfred Brush Ford (b. 1950),

Josephine and Walter Ford were major contributors to the College for Creative Studies (a $20,000,000 donation in 1997) and the Detroit Institute of Arts among other institutions. Dody donated Van Gogh's Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin, which was valued at $40,000,000, to the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1996. She also donated large amounts of money for cancer research leading to the formation of the Josephine Ford Cancer Center.