SEEK MORE TREATMENT
still scares me to death, but there is no kinder, better friend than Mrs. Bush,” he said.
Andrew Card, chief of staff to President George W. Bush and transportation secretary for George H.W. Bush, said he dined with the Bushes this past month and she was noticeably frail but still had that “vim and vigor.”
“Evidently she has indicated that she doesn’t want any extraordinary means as she’s moving down this path. She is confident and comfortable with mortality and in her faith and her love,” Card said. “She and her husband have one of the greatest love stories in the world that is an example and is playing out as we speak.”
Bush, who is at home in Houston, is one of only two first ladies who was also the mother of a president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, the nation’s second president, and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president.
Bush married George H.W. Bush on Jan. 6, 1945. They had six children and have been married longer than any presidential couple in American history.
Eight years after she and her husband left the White House, Mrs. Bush stood with her husband as their son George W. was sworn in as the 43rd president.
She’s known for her white hair and her triple-strand fake pearl necklace.
Her brown hair began to gray in the 1950s, when her 3-year-old daughter Pauline underwent treatment for leukemia and eventually died in October 1953. She later said dyed hair didn’t look good on her and credited the color to the public’s perception as “everybody’s grandmother.”
Her pearls sparked a national fashion frenzy when she wore them to her husband’s inauguration in 1989. The pearls became synonymous with Bush, who later said she selected them to hide the wrinkles in her neck. The candid admission only bolstered her down-to-earth image.
Her 93-year-old husband, the nation’s 41st president, who served from 1989 to 1993, also has had health issues in recent years. In April 2017, he was hospitalized in Houston for two weeks for a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. He was hospitalized months earlier, also for pneumonia. He has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.
‘She is confident and comfortable with mortality and in her faith and her love.’ — ANDREW CARD, chief of staff to President George W. Bush and transportation secretary for George H.W. Bush