Benjamin Pierson Ford III ’45

Ben died Sept. 26, 2009, after a long illness.  

Ben prepared for Princeton at the Hoosac School in Hoosick, N.Y., and joined Cloister Inn. His Princeton education was interrupted for work with the American Field Service as an ambulance driver, serving with the British and French forces in North Africa, Italy, Europe, and India. He was awarded the British Empire Medal for that service.  

In 1947 he married Priscilla Whitcomb, and in 1948 received his A.B. from Princeton in geology. In 1951, Ben received a master of sacred theology degree from the General Theological Seminary and was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1952. He served in many locales in the United States, including the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and in Farmington, N.M., with service to the Navajo. He retired in 1984, and went briefly to England to serve in an Anglican church there before retiring for 15 years in Maine.