Woman of substance and stinging tongue
Barbara Bush, former US first lady: b June 8, 1925, Queens, New York; m George Bush, 4s, 2d; d April 17, Houston, Texas; aged 92
Barbara Pierce Bush, who helped propel her husband and their son to the presidency, became by virtue of her wit, self-deprecation and work on literacy, one of the most popular first ladies in United States history.
Bush is the second woman in US history to have been the wife of one president and the mother of another. But Barbara Bush, unlike Abigail Adams, the wife of second president John Adams and mother of sixth president John Quincy Adams, lived to see her son George W Bush inhabit the White House for two terms. She also campaigned on behalf of another son, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, during his unsuccessful quest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
While she was unpretentious, plainspoken and down-to-earth, Bush was also a northeastern blueblood who was strong-willed, politically shrewd, always blunt and occasionally caustic.
She often downplayed her own considerable skills by saying: ‘‘All I ever did was marry and birth well.’’
As first lady from 1989 to 1993, she sometimes had a popularity rating that was higher than her husband’s. His presidency may have been imperfect – judged successful in foreign affairs and disappointing on the domestic economic front – but the first lady wielded a behind-the-scenes influence and the skills of an effective campaigner.
Part of her strength was her willingness to poke fun, particularly at herself. Her signature fashion statement was a three-strand choker of unmistakably fake pearls. Her prematurely white hair earned her a teasing family nickname, ‘‘the Silver Fox’’, even as it inspired unkind gibes about looking like her husband’s mother. (He was born one year before her.)
Frequent photographs of her reading to Aids babies or underprivileged schoolchildren served to soften a toughness that she acknowledged had come to her late in life, after giving birth to six children, five of whom survive her.
To her children and the White House staff, she was ‘‘the enforcer’’ who spoke volumes with a simple raised eyebrow.
During her first year in the White House, she was criticised by Liz Carpenter, former press secretary of another first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, for refusing to speak out on issues that were important to women.
In her 1994 memoir, Bush published a response that she wrote but never mailed: ‘‘Long ago I decided in life I had to have priorities. I put my children and husband at the top of my list. That’s a choice that I never regretted.’’
Abortion rights, the Equal Rights Amendment and gun control were not priorities for her, she wrote. ‘‘I leave that for those courageous enough to run for public office.’’
Because the two wives who preceded her in the White House – Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan – were frequently accused of wielding too much political influence, the public may have been ready for Bush’s deference to her husband in policy matters. The nonpartisan social causes she worked for – literacy and volunteerism – stemmed from the tradition of noblesse oblige that was part of her moneyed heritage. Her dedication to philanthropic work was also rooted in personal tragedy.
When her second child, a girl nicknamed Robin, died of leukaemia at age 3 in 1953, Bush turned to volunteering as a way to cope with the loss. Literacy also held personal significance because she had helped her son Neil overcome dyslexia.
Bush admitted that she shaped her public image to avoid controversy, but occasionally a wicked, sarcastic side broke through. Her most widely reported gaffe occurred in 1984 during President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign, when reporters chided her about her husband’s wealth.
She responded by calling Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro ‘‘that $4-million – I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich’’. She said she thought the comments were off the record; she immediately apologised.
In 2005, when her son’s administration was under fire for its slow response to Hurricane Katrina, she seemed to suggest a silver lining for its victims after touring the Houston Astrodome, which was used as a relocation center for New Orleans residents. ‘‘Many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them,’’ she said.
Barbara Bush was the third of Marvin and Pauline Pierce’s four children and enjoyed a privileged upbringing in suburban Rye, New York.
Her father was publisher of McCall’s magazine and a distant relative of President Franklin Pierce. She remembered her mother, the daughter of an Ohio Supreme Court justice, as remote.
In 1941, at 16, Barbara met George Bush, then a prep school senior, at a country club dance. She said later that his was the most beautiful face she had ever seen. He was the first boy she kissed; they were engaged a year later, just before George went to war as a navy fighter pilot. They married on January 6, 1945, while he was home on leave. After World War II, George Bush enrolled at Yale University, and they had their first child, George Walker Bush, the next year.
As the Bush family grew, they moved from Texas, where George worked in the oil business, to five cities in California – Compton, Huntington Park, Bakersfield, Whittier and Ventura – in a single year. After they returned to Texas, he launched his political career in 1966 with a successful run for Congress.
It was while caring for Robin in the eight months before she died that Bush’s hair started going grey. Friends said the Bushes got through their grief by supporting each other. Of that time, Bush told Time magazine in 1989: ‘‘George held me tight and wouldn’t let go.’’
Battling depression after her daughter died, Bush overheard sevenyear-old George telling a friend that he couldn’t come out because he had to play with his mother, who was lonely. She later said that moment made her realise she needed to pull herself together.
Yet as her husband rose in business and politics – through two terms in the House of Representatives, stints as UN ambassador and Republican Party chairman – she said she sometimes felt like a neglected homebody.
She had trouble shaking the feeling that George was off ‘‘doing these exciting things’’, she joked to Time, ‘‘and I’m sitting home with these absolutely brilliant children who say one thing a week of interest’’.
After her husband lost his presidential bid for re-election to Bill Clinton in 1992, the Bushes built a home in Houston, and she delighted in being away from politics. She gardened and read voraciously. Repeatedly asked the secret to her long marriage, she often replied that a sense of humour was important. She described her husband as ‘‘that 80-year-old whirlwind who makes my life sing’’.
— The Los Angeles Times
‘‘George held me tight and wouldn’t let go.’’ Barbara Bush after the death of her daughter.