From Joe Morris:

With great sorrow I advise of the death this morning — Independence Day — at Park Ridge, Illinois, of William “Bill” Ford, 77 ((June 26, 1938 – July 4, 2015).

A lifelong Chicagoan, Bill was an independent thinker and a blithe spirit. His wife Penny and he produced numerous children, including Liam Ford of the Chicago Tribune and political scientist Joseph Ford.

Bill was an early apostle of the modern conservative movement, rubbing elbows and matching wits beginning in the 1950s with the likes of F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Bill Buckley, and Vic Milione. He was a ground-floor member of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (today the Intercollegiate Studies Institute), and was ever conscious of the delightful oxymoron built into the Society’s name.

Bill Ford’s funeral will be on Saturday, July 11, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. CDT.

The funeral will be a Mass at St. Ignatius Church, 6559 North Glenwood Avenue, in Chicago. The telephone number of the church is (773) 764-5936.

The wake will be held on Friday, July 10, 2015, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at John E. Maloney Funeral Directors, 1359 West Devon Avenue in Chicago. Telephone at the Maloney chapel: (773) 764-1617.