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Later career and death

When Edsel Ford, President of Ford Motor Company, died of cancer in May 1943, the elderly and ailing Henry Ford decided to assume the presidency. By this point, Ford, nearing 80, had several cardiovascular events (variously cited as heart attacks or strokes) and was mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and generally no longer fit for such immense responsibilities.

Most of the directors did not want to see him as president. But for the previous 20 years, though he had long been without any official executive title, he had always had de facto control over the company; the board and the management had never seriously defied him, and this time was no different. The directors elected him, and he served until the end of the war. During this period the company began to decline, losing more than $10 million a month ($ 176,080,000 today). The administration of President Franklin Roosevelt had been considering a government takeover of the company in order to ensure continued war production, but the idea never progressed.

His health failing, Ford ceded the company presidency to his grandson Henry Ford II in September 1945 and retired. He died on April 7, 1947, of a cerebral hemorrhage at Fair Lane, his estate in Dearborn, at the age of 83. A public viewing was held at Greenfield Village where up to 5,000 people per hour filed past the casket. Funeral services were held in Detroit's Cathedral Church of St. Paul and he was buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit.