Cathedral; body to be flown to Michigan on Tuesday.

PALM DESERT, Calif., Dec 28 (Reuters) A week of public tributes to former President Gerald Ford will stretch from the California desert to the nation's capital and back to his boyhood home of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for burial, organizers said on Wednesday.

A private funeral service for family and close friends of the 38th U S president is scheduled for Friday afternoon at St.

Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, California, which Ford and his wife, Betty, attended for the past three decades.

Ford's body will then lie in repose at the church until Saturday, when his remains will be flown to Washington, D C.

Upon arrival in Washington, Ford's casket will be taken by motorcade to the World War Two memorial for a brief tribute, then on to the U S Capitol that evening for a ceremony saluting his 24 years as a member of the U S House of Representatives.

Ford's casket will be carried up the East House Steps from the Capitol Plaza to be met by a group of his former House colleagues and will then lie in repose at the open doors to the House chamber, honoring his time in Congress. The casket will then be carried through Statuary Hall to the Capitol Rotunda to lie in state until next Tuesday.

That morning, after a brief stop outside the Senate chamber, Ford's remains will be taken to the Washington National Cathedral for a national funeral service.

Ford's casket will be flown later Tuesday to Grand Rapids, where his body will be interred on Wednesday in a hillside tomb overlooking the Ford presidential library and museum.

Funeral plans for Ford, who died on Tuesday at age 93, were outlined by his longtime aide and family friend Gregory Willard at a news conference in Palm Desert, near Ford's main retirement home in Rancho Mirage, California.

Reuters BDP DB0907