From the New York Times, 27 Feb 1928, pg. 19:
JAMES L. FORD, AUTHOR, 73, DEAD
Humorist and Critic Cheerful to End, Despite Blindness and Amputation of Legs.

James Lauren Ford, humorist and author, who for many years was literary critic of the old New York Herald, died yesterday in the south Side Hospital at Bay Shore, L.I., after ten years of invalidism that included blindness and the amputation of both legs, which he bore to the end with cheerful heroism. He was 73 years old. He is survived by a sister, Miss Mary K. Ford, with whom he lived at Brookhaven, L.I. Funeral services will be held in the Church of the Epiphany, Lexington Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, at 2 P.M. on Wednesday.

Born in St. Louis, a son of James K. and Louisa Livermore Ford, James L. Ford attended a school in Stockbridge, Mass. At the age of 16 he came to New York and started his half century and more of writing with a job on the Railway Gazette. In his book, "Forty-odd Years in the Literary Shop," published in 1923, he told with his characteristic satiric humor and shrewd observation of his manifold experiences as an author in this city.

Mr. Ford's service with the Herald ended with the sale of the newspaper to Frank A. Munsey. Since then he had been a "free lance," writing for magazines and newspapers many kinds of articles and reviews, the latter chiefly concerned with books. Ten years ago it was necessary to cut off one of his legs, and three years afterward the other. Two years ago he became blind. But he did not cease writing until five weeks ago, a few days before the doctors ordered him to the hospital. And this beginning of the end of his long fight came shortly after the happiest day of his life, when he was brought up to the city to a friend's house and was made the guest of honor at a celebration attended by nearly every important man and woman in the literary and dramatic worlds of the city.

From the New York Times, 2 Mar 1928, pg. 22:
THE LATE JAMES L. FORD
To the Editor of the New York Times:

I was interested in THE TIMES editorial on James Laurens Ford. How can one do justice to his heroic spirit that has gone to a reward which must, indeed, be great if it is to compensate for the bitter misfortune that, in his later days, wrecked his body but did not break his will? I wish some golden pen might write the record of those later days. There surely would be inspiration for the sick-at-heart and the afflicted in the example of high resolve and sublime courage of the man. And yet Jim Ford would have laughed at the idea of being called a hero, and would have indignantly denied that life had not paid him in full. In truth few men have got so much from living.

Nevertheless, to us who knew him he was a hero, for we know what the loss of sight and motion meant to a man whose greatest joy must have been to look into the eyes of his friends and to move about among them.

To visit him was a pure delight--a joyous benediction. One basked in the sunlight of his presence and never did the monstrous afflictions which the brutal hand of fate had meted out to him ever intrude upon these visits. For every physical deprivation his triumphant spirit seemed to take to itself a double toll of sweetness and light. Who ever visited that cheerful little cottage in Brookhaven and did not come away invigorated by the cool, refreshing breath of his personality? If ever a man was master of his fate and captain of his soul that man was James Laurens Ford.
........WALTER P. HENSHAW
........Gladstone, N.J., Feb 28, 1928