Meet GJ’s Abortionist Grandma

Marie J Ford was born in 1897 in Missouri, her family moved to Woody Creek when she was a child.

She moved to Grand Junction in 1941. She passed here in the Grand Valley in 1991.

Not much is known about Marie J. Ford. But what is known makes her a hero of reproductive freedom here in the Western Slope of Colorado.

From 1947 to 1960, at least, Marie preformed illegal abortions for women in the region decades before Roe V. Wade made them legal. In 1947, Marie was acquitted of attempted abortion. She was later convicted of two abortion related charges in 1960. The case was front page news for months. The sentinel portrayed her as a Grandma Abortionist. Reporting from the Daily Sentinel from the trial makes it clear that local doctors were referring patients to her regularly. She was sentenced to two years suspended sentence.

It would not be until the 1980s, that women in the Grand Valley could access safe legal abortions locally.

May we all put our beliefs into action, with the same fearlessness that Marie J. Ford put her beliefs into action.

We at, The People’s History of the Grand Valley, would love any leads on more information about Marie Ford.