Ford was born Elizabeth Anne Bloomer in 1918 in Chicago, Illinois, the third child and only daughter of Hortense (née Neahr; 1884 – 1948) and William Stephenson Bloomer, Sr. (1874 – 1934), who was a traveling salesman for Royal Rubber Co. She was called Betty as a child.. Hortense and William married on November 9, 1904, in Chicago. Betty’s two older brothers were Robert (d. 1971) and …