GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Thousands of flag-waving mourners watched as a motorcade carrying the body of Gerald R. Ford made its way one last time through the streets of his boyhood hometown to the Ford family church, where an honour guard carried the late president’s casket inside for a final funeral service.His widow, Betty Ford, wiped away tears as she sat with their four children and more than 300 dignitaries and family friends at Grace Episcopal Church.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who defeated Ford in 1976 but later became a close friend, sat in a front pew, flanked by Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who served in Ford’s cabinet as his chief of staff and as his defence secretary.

Rumsfeld praised Ford as “a patriot who knew that freedom is precious,” and he recalled the day Ford took over the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon.

“The pressures were enormous, the stakes were high ... and the American people were holding their breath,” Rumsfeld said. “Few doubted that the gentleman from Michigan would keep his word. That was his special magic.”

Carter described the close personal friendship he and Ford had developed over the years.

“I relished his sound advice,” Carter said. “I want to thank my predecessor for all he did to heal our land.”

After the service, the late president was to be interred in a private ceremony on his presidential museum grounds in downtown Grand Rapids, overlooking the Grand River.

Yesterday’s ceremonies capped six days of official mourning, from services in California to the US capital to a 17-hour viewing Tuesday night and yesterday morning at the museum. Some 57,000 mourners with bundled-up children in tow had waited hours to file past the flag-draped casket during the night. Some said silent prayers, and young Boy Scouts saluted the 38th US president.

“There aren’t too many politicians like that any more. They kind of broke the mold when they made him,” said Bill Phillips, a state government photographer who signed a book of condolences yesterday morning at the museum.

Grand Rapids was the city that Ford called home. His family had belonged to Grace Episcopal Church since the early 1940s, and Ford played football for the University of Michigan’s national championship teams in 1932 and 1933.

Many of the mourners at the museum and lining the roads during his funeral procession yesterday wore Michigan hats and sweat shirts in his honour.

Ford, who became president after Richard Nixon resigned, died December 26 at his home in Rancho Mirage, California.

Unlike yesterday’s services in the 350-seat Michigan church, the elaborate national funeral service in Washington on Tuesday had drawn 3,000 people. President George W. Bush spoke Tuesday, as did NBC newsman Tom Brokaw and Ford’s secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, among others.

“In President Ford, the world saw the best of America, and America found a man whose character and leadership would bring calm and healing to one of the most divisive moments in our nation’s history,” Bush said in his eulogy.