Kathleen DuRoss Ford, widow of Henry Ford II, dies at age 80

DETROIT (AP) - Kathleen DuRoss Ford, the widow of former Ford Motor Co. President Henry Ford II, has died at age 80.

DuRoss Ford died Friday at a Pittsburgh hospital after years of bad health, including a double lung transplant, her sister, Sharon Amluxen told the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.

DuRoss Ford was a former model from Detroit whose father had been a factory worker. She married the grandson of Henry Ford in 1980 for his third marriage after her first husband died in a car crash.

After Ford II’s death in 1987 at age 70, DuRoss Ford was engaged in a public fight over the fate of the estate, then estimated at $350 million. DuRoss Ford put her Grosse Pointe Farms mansion on the market in 2001 and called Palm Beach, Florida, home for years.