Former First Lady Barbara Bush Dies at 92

Barbara Pierce Bush, the wife of one president and the mother of another, known for her distinctive white hair, signature pearls and direct manner, has died. She was 92.Bush, who served as first lady from 1989 to 1993, chose the promotion of literacy as her focus while her husband, George H.W. Bush, was vice president under President Ronald Reagan, and she founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. She wrote two popular books about her dogs, “C. Fred’s story,” and “Millie’s Book,” and donated the proceeds to literary programs. Starbucks Closing All Stores May 29 for Racial-Bias Training Bush also volunteered for a variety of other causes, including homelessness, the elderly, school programs and people with AIDS.She said people liked her because they knew, “I’m fair and I like children and I adore my husband,” according to the White House website. 1 Dead After Southwest Jet Blows an Engine Bush was born on June 8, 1925, to Pauline and Marvin Pierce, who later became president of the McCall Corporation. Raised in the suburban town of Rye, New York, she attended Rye Country Day School and then boarding school at Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina.She met George H.W. Bush, a senior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, when she was only 16 at a dance during Christmas vacation. They became engaged a year and a half later, just before he went off to fight in World War II as a Navy bomber pilot. IRS Extends Deadline to April 18 After Technical Problems She had dropped out of Smith College by the time he returned on leave, and they were married on Jan. 6, 1945.The family moved to Odessa, Texas, after George Bush graduated from Yale University and entered the oil business — one of nearly 30 moves during their marriage.Their daughter, Pauline, who was known as Robin, died of leukemia in 1953.”Because of Robin, George and I love every living human more,” she said, according to the White House.In 1990, Barbara Bush was asked to be the keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. The choice prompted criticism from a group of students who thought a woman with her own career would have been a better choice.”I think these young women can have a lot to learn from Barbara Bush and from her unselfishness and from her advocacy of literacy and of being a good mother and a lot of other things,” President Bush said at the time according to The New York Times.The family returned to Texas after leaving the White House. Her son George W. Bush became president in 2000 and another son, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, ran for the Republican nomination in 2016 but later dropped out of the race. Her grandson George P. Bush is the Texas land commissioner. Barbara Bush mostly stayed clear of politics but she caused a stir in 1992 when she described abortion as a personal choice and said it should be left out of parties’ platforms.Her outspokenness earned her criticism in 2005 after she visited evacuees displaced by Hurricane Katrina at the Houston Astrodome.”What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas,” she said in a radio interview on Marketplace. “Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, and so many of the people in the arenas here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”In addition to her husband, she is survived by five children, George W., Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy, 14 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.Photo Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images, File
Source: NBC San Diego