The Chrysler’s Place in Norfolk NATO Festival History

This weekend would have marked the start of the much anticipated Norfolk NATO Festival. Formally the Azalea Festival, the event has been an annual Norfolk tradition since 1954. In fact, it is the longest-running festival in Hampton Roads. The celebration was created to promote cooperation within the international community. Although we are not able to enjoy the event this year, we can look back on its wondrous history.

Until 2007, an Azalea Queen was selected to exemplify the Festival’s mission. In 1976, Susan Ford—the daughter Gerald R. Ford, the thirty-eighth President of the United States—was selected to be the Azalea Festival’s twenty-third Queen. Ford’s responsibility as Queen was an exhaustive one. One of her duties was to open the Festival for eight days. From Sunday, April 25 until Sunday, May 2, Ford traveled throughout Norfolk attending several ceremonies and celebratory dinners and making guest appearances on local television and radio stations.

On April 29, 1976, Ford visited the newly dubbed Chrysler Museum of Art and was given a private tour by the institution’s namesake, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. According to the Gerald R. Ford Library and the Museum’s digital collection, Chrysler accompanied Ford through the Museum’s “master’s oil paintings, 200 years of American art sculpture, and cut-glass exhibits.”

As a registration volunteer at the Chrysler Museum, I assist in digitizing the institution’s photographs. While performing that duty, I started digitizing the 1976 slide drawer and scanned photos of this very event. Among them are images of Chrysler greeting the Azalea Queen in front of the Museum’s former entrance on Olney Road and Mowbray Arch. Once inside, Chrysler and Ford walked through the Museum’s many galleries and the Peter Paul Rubens exhibition. Several of the artworks in the photographs of Ford’s visit are currently on view. Can you spot Frederick Childe Hassam’s At the Florist or Gustave Dore’s The Neophyte?

Even though the Norfolk NATO Festival has been canceled this year because of the impact of the coronavirus, we can still celebrate the ethos of togetherness and alliance the event is meant to convey. Additionally, technological advancements make it possible to visit the Museum from the comfort of your home. With that said, I hope you enjoyed these newly digitized photographs that commemorate the 1976 festival and the Museum’s history. Curate your own tour of the Chrysler Museum by exploring our collection online.

-Melanie Castillo, Registration Volunteer

Works Cited

Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0126/1489896.pdf

Norfolk NATO Festival. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://www.vafest.org/norfolk-nato-festival/