‘A person of action:’ friends, mentees remember Lucille Garber Ford

ASHLAND — One of Ashland’s most influential and beloved women spent her last moments thinking about work, on Labor Day.

Lucille Garber Ford died Sept. 2 surrounded by family at home. She was 102. 

Karen Ford, one of Lucille’s two daughters, said it was fitting for her mother — a woman who’s life after retirement was as fruitful as her working days — to espouse one last lesson.

“She said ‘one is two and two is one, and one and two are one,’” Ford said of her mother’s last words. The phrase, Karen Ford said, referenced a scripture found in Matthew 20.

The Bible passage tells a story of the laborers in the vineyard, one of many parables told by Jesus. It underscores the idea that God values everyone — no matter how much or how little they “work.”

To Karen Ford, her mother’s last words reinforces what she grew up learning: “You can’t do anything without it truly coming from the heart. When it comes from your heart, you care. If you care, you can do any and all things.” 

A lifelong Ashland resident, Ford is most known for her work in education and philanthropic contributions as Ashland County Community Foundation’s founding president.

Kristin Aspin, the Foundation’s first and longest-serving employee, said ACCF is what it is now because of Ford. Aspin now works as ACCF’s Chief Operating Officer.

“Had she not been the one leading the charge to create this foundation, it wouldn’t have been created when it was created, and it wouldn’t have been as successful right out of the gate as it was,” she said. 

Jim Cutright took the helm as ACCF’s president in 2012, serving as Ford’s immediate successor.

“I was always in awe of (Ford) and had tremendous admiration and respect for her as a person and as a leader,” he said. “It has been very daunting to be her immediate successor, as she left some big shoes to fill, but also extremely rewarding and a great honor, as we stand on her shoulders to reach new heights.”

Ford helped establish the foundation in 1995, when she was 73.

The foundation credits her, who served for 17 years as its president, with its success in owning more than 600 endowment funds and more than $25 million given back to the community in the form of grants, scholarships and individual fund distributions.

But it was the life she lived and the career she built in the decades before that made it all possible.

Early years and teaching career

Ford was born Dec. 31, 1921 to Ora Myers Garber and Edna Armstrong Garber. She graduated from Ashland High School in 1940.

She earned an Associates Degree of Arts 1942 from Stephens College, an all-women school in Columbia, Missouri. (Garber Ford would later earn the school’s Alumni Achievement Award in 1977.) From there, she moved on to Northwestern University in Illinois and earned a degree in commerce and an MBA, in 1945.

She met her husband, Laurence Wesley Ford, while studying at Northwestern University. They were married for nearly 60 years before he died in 2006. He was 85.

She taught at the University of Alabama and at Allegheny College before moving back to her hometown with Laurence to operate the family’s commercial printing business, A.L. Garber Company. By 1959, she served on the company’s board and as its personnel director. He worked as the company’s president. 

Ford was considered the third (and last) generation to work for A.L. Garber Company, which her grandfather, Aaron Leedy Garber, founded in 1879. In 1969 the company sold to United Board and Carton Co., which ultimately led to several sales through the 70s.

By then, Ford had returned to teaching. She started as an economics professor in 1967 at Ashland University. 

It’s there she built a legacy that would someday earn her the moniker as Ashland’s “matriarch,” a name Ashland Mayor Matt Miller gave her during her 100th birthday celebration.

During her 30 years at Ashland University, Ford served as Chair of its Economics Department, director of the Gill Center for Business and Education, the Dean of Special Programs, Dean of the School of Business Administration and Radio/TV, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost.

She retired from AU as the Executive Assistant to the President in 1995. She’s credited with developing the university’s nursing program, writing center and its honors program, along with several majors. She instructed more than 3,000 business and economics students during her tenure.

One of those students, Peter Linneman, said meeting Ford way back in 1969 — in an economics 101 course — changed his life forever.

“I was a blue-collar kid from Lima,” he said from his office in Philadelphia. Linneman, now 73, said he was the first of four siblings to go to college. 

He credits her with inspiring him to major in economics, and ultimately to pursue a doctorate in the field under University of Chicago’s Milton Friedman. (Friedman would later go on to win the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.)

Linneman said Garber Ford agreed to be a co-signor on an auto loan for him. It was shortly after his dad died, when he was 19. 

“It allowed me to work in the summer and make payments on school,” he said. Through the years, the two became professional peers.

He’s now the principal of Linneman Associates in Philadephia, the CEO and founder of American Land Fund and KL Realty. Before that, he taught at University of Chicago and served as a senior faculty member at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He retired in 2010. 

He eventually became close friends with Garber Ford. When her husband died, he asked her what she wanted to do. 

“She said ‘I want to travel,’ and so I asked her where she wanted to go,” he said. “She told me ‘Antarctica.’” 

So the two traveled to Antarctica. She was 87. 

“We did all the things you do there,” he said. “We got on shore, chased the orcas.” 

A few years later, they traveled to Kenya together. Linneman co-founded a charity there in the early 2000s named Sam Elimu, a school for impoverished children.

While there, he spoke to some of the students about her while she sat in the corner, observing and listening.

“And at the end, I said ‘Now I’ve told you about her, now you get to hear from her,’” he said. “And she explodes.” 

Linneman said Ford, at the age of 90, embodied the likes of Mick Jagger and Taylor Swift that day during that brief moment with the teens and young adults. 

“She really got into it. And at the end, she told them ‘Now don’t disappoint yourself. You can do it.’ And she sits back down in the corner of the room, back to being the little lady. That was Lucille,” he said. 

Vincent James Consolo, 65, never took one of Ford’s classes. But she made a big impression on him during his pursuit of a business management degree at Ashland University. He graduated in 1981. 

Consolo’s grandmother died while he was in school, so he sought guidance from Ford. Her compassion and care was evident, he said.

He returned to his alma mater to help fundraise and organize events for the Ashbrook Center. He later served on the university’s alumni board from 1985-87 — all because of Ford’s kindness.

Consolo even came back to Ashland to help her daughters plan her 100th birthday in December 2021.

‘A person of action’

During her teaching career at Ashland, she also pursued her own academics and interests. 

She earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Case Western Reserve University and became a certified financial planner in 1980.

She also held a Master of Arts in Pastoral Counseling from Ashland Theological Seminary.

Consolo remembered something his mentor always said: “Find your mission, fill it with passion. Be relentless in its pursuit.”

“I was happy to know her all these years … she was a homegrown gal that loved her community and really enjoyed working for the benefit of others,” he said.

Ashland City Council President Steve Workman led a moment of silence in Ford’s honor during a Sept. 3 meeting in council chambers. 

“She exemplified what it meant to serve your community. She not only talked the talk, but she walked the walk. She was a person of action,” Workman said. 

In 1978, Ford became Ohio’s first woman to be on the primary ticket for Lieutenant Governor, running alongside Charles Kurfess. 

Kurfess and Ford lost in the republican primary to Jim Rhodes, ending her political aspirations, but perhaps kickstarting a desire to achieve more firsts.

For example, she was the first woman to serve on Ohio Edison’s board of directors, and she also became the first woman appointed to the board of directors for National City Bank in Cleveland.

She served on a number of various boards across Ohio and the country, from the Association of Private Enterprise in Texas, to First National Bank in Ashland.

“She was someone who had all the character attributes, all of the God-given charisma, intelligence and the charm, and the resources, that she could have gone anywhere in the country and been a tremendous success,” said Miller, Ashland’s mayor. 

‘A beautiful person and my mom’

She accomplished all of this while mothering two children, the Rev. JoAnn “Jody” Ford Watson and Karen Ford.

Watson is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA. She’s pastored churches in Ohio and New York, has authored 13 books and worked for more than 30 years at Ashland Theological Seminary. 

She now serves on various boards in Ashland, such as the Ashland Symphony Board of Directors, Ashland City Schools Foundation, ACCESS and Catholic Charities Advisory Council. She also served on the Women’s Fund Steering Committee of the Ashland County Community Foundation.

Watson will officiate her mother’s funeral with the Rev. Justin Hylden on Sept. 7 at the First Presbyterian Church in Ashland. 

“She was a trailblazer with courage to create new vision and to affect growth and productivity wherever she worked,” she said of her mother. “She loved her family, her friends and the Ashland Community. She gave her all. Her life will have a lasting impact on everything she contributed in so many wonderful ways. We are so grateful for her life and thank God for her.” 

Karen Ford, a retired Navy lieutenant commander, said she was privileged to have Ford as a mentor. 

“My mentor will be and always has been my mother,” she said. “I’ve always been privileged to have her right there. Others have to look hard for a mentor. I didn’t have to look very far.”

But most of all, she said, “she was a beautiful person and she was my mom.”