Bush remembered for grit, grace and humor
HOUSTON — Dignity. Grace. Respect, always respect.
In the church, on the streets, lining up to view the casket, they said the same words over and over: Barbara Bush, the “first lady of the Greatest Generation,” as one of her eulogists called her, had the good manners of handwritten notes, decency in disagreement, the ability to apologize. Nobody’s angel, nobody’s fool. Tough and fierce, but kind and fair. And don’t forget funny as hell.
Saturday’s funeral for the wife of one president and mother of another offered the nation a deep breath, a moment of reflection, a chance to savor and celebrate a family, a generation, a way of life that feels like it is increasingly slipping away.
“In hours of war and of peace, of tumult and of calm, the Bushes governed in a spirit of congeniality, of civility, and of grace,” eulogist and historian Jon Meacham told the 1,500 mourners gathered in St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston on a warm and sprinkly April morning. “Barbara and George Bush put country above party, the common good above political gain, and service to others above the settling of scores.”
Bush, who died Tuesday at 92, embodied the political establishment. She was the matriarch of a dynasty. Her hair went white early, and she never bothered trying to color it. She liked things real.
On Saturday, American political royalty turned out to say goodbye, including many women in royal blue dresses and strings of fake pearls, some of Bush’s trademarks.
First lady Melania Trump. The Obamas. The Clintons. Family members of Presidents Ford, Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy. (President Carter was traveling overseas, and Rosalynn Carter is recovering from surgery.) Former vice presidents, former prime ministers, governors, Cabinet secretaries and senators, generals and CIA directors.
George H.W. Bush is in a wheelchair and in frail health at 93. But still, at a public viewing attended by 6,000 people Friday, he sat in front of the flower-laden casket for 20 minutes and greeted mourners.
At the funeral Saturday, the former president sat in the front row, next to his wife’s casket that was draped in gold and white. Their daughter, Dorothy Bush Koch, better known as “Doro,” sat next to him with her arm around her father’s shoulder, turning the pages of his program for him.
“She was the gold standard of what it meant to be a friend,” said eulogist Susan Garrett Baker, wife of former Secretary of State James Baker, who was George H.W. Bush’s White House chief of staff. She listed more of the words that so many used Saturday: smart, strong, fun, feisty, selfless, compassionate, tender, firm, “a tough but loving enforcer.”
President Donald Trump stayed away to “avoid disruptions” caused by presidential security, according to a White House statement. Trump, at his Mar-aLago estate in Florida, tweeted that his “thoughts and prayers” were with the Bush family. That came right after a multi-tweet rant about a “third-rate” reporter, a “drunk/drugged up loser” and a “Crooked (Hillary) flunkie.”
Trump finished a round of golf just before the service began and tweeted that he would be watching it on TV. The White House released a statement from Melania Trump calling Bush “a woman of indisputable character and grace” and a “fearless First Lady.”
Sitting presidents often skip funerals of former first ladies.
Jeb Bush, in his eulogy, didn’t mention the president who once called him “dumb as a rock.” But he spoke of how his mother was the “first and most important teacher” for her five children. She taught them to “say please and thank you,” he said, and to “be kind, always tell the truth, never disparage anyone, serve others, treat everyone as you would want to be treated.”
The burial was held at her husband’s presidential library at Texas A&M University, about 100 miles northwest of Houston.
The burial site is in a gated plot near a creek where the couple’s 3-yearold daughter, Robin, who died of leukemia in 1953, is buried. Associated Press contributed.