Clinton B. Ford

Clinton B. Ford (March 1, 1913 – September 23, 1992), aged 79, was an American investor, musician and amateur astronomer specializing in the observation of variable stars.

Clinton Banker Ford, born on March 1, 1913, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was the son of Walter and Edith (Banker) Ford. Ford had one brother, Sylvester Ford (1906–1956). The Ford side of the family hailed from Oneonta, New York where it survived until the 1930s. Ford's mother's family came from Ovid, New York.

Ford's father, Walter, was a mathematics professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Ford's first brush with the stars came in August 1927 when he went with his father to Boulder, CO to a meeting of the AMA. It was at this point in his life that Ford first saw the splendor the sky could show.

In the Spring of 1927 Professor Ralph Curtiss loaned Ford two books: Splendour of the Heavens and The Friendly Stars. In the back of the latter book's original edition there was an invitation by William Tyler Olcott of the AAVSO to contribute to the advancement of astronomy by observing variable stars. Ford took Olcott and the AAVSO up on that invitation and on September 23, 1927, he reported his first variable star estimate - 184205 R Scuti at 5.3 magnitude.

Ford made over 60,000 variable star observations and became the youngest member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers at the age of fifteen.

Ford, by virtue of a sabbatical his father took, was lucky enough to tour Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt when he was fifteen. Ford spent his sixteenth birthday in Alexandretta. Among several adventures Ford had at the time, one included climbing to the top of the Great Pyramid and carving his name into it.

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