Matriarch of a U.S. political dynasty
She ‘brought levity, love and literacy to millions’
HOUSTON — Barbara Bush, the first lady whose plainspoken manner and lack of pretense made her more popular at times than her husband, President George H.W. Bush, died Tuesday. She was 92.
Family spokesman Jim McGrath confirmed the death in a statement. The cause wasn’t immediately known.
“My dear mother has passed on at age 92. Laura, Barbara, Jenna, and I are sad, but our souls are settled because we know hers was,” former President George W. Bush said in a statement Tuesday. “Barbara Bush was a fabulous First Lady and a woman unlike any other who brought levity, love, and literacy to millions. To us, she was so much more. Mom kept us on our toes and kept us laughing until the end. I’m a lucky man that Barbara Bush was my mother. Our family will miss her dearly, and we thank you all for your prayers and good wishes.”
Mrs. Bush brought a grandmotherly style to buttoned-down Washington, often appearing in her trademark fake pearl chokers and displaying no vanity about her white hair and wrinkles.
“What you see with me is what you get. I’m not running for president — George Bush is,” she said at the 1988 Republican National Convention, where her husband,
then vice president, was nominated to succeed Ronald Reagan.
The Bushes, who were married Jan. 6, 1945, had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in American history. And Mrs. Bush was one of only two first ladies who had a child who was elected president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.
“I had the best job in America,” she wrote in a 1994 memoir describing her time in the White House. “Every single day was interesting, rewarding, and sometimes just plain fun.”
The publisher’s daughter and oilman’s wife could be caustic in private, but her public image was that of a selfsacrificing, supportive spouse who referred to her husband as her “hero.”
In the White House, “you need a friend, someone who loves you, who’s going to say, ‘You are great,’ ” Mrs. Bush said in a 1992 television interview.
Eight years after leaving the nation’s capital, Mrs. Bush stood with her husband as their son George W. was sworn in as president. They returned four years later when he won a second term. Unlike Mrs. Bush, Abigail Adams did not live to see her son’s inauguration. She died in 1818, six years before John Quincy Adams was elected.
Mrs. Bush insisted she did not try to influence her husband’s politics.
“I don’t fool around with his office,” she said, “and he doesn’t fool around with my household.”
In 1984, her quick wit got her into trouble when she was quoted as referring to Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, as “that $4 million — I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich.”
“It was dumb of me. I shouldn’t have said it,” Mrs. Bush acknowledged in 1988. “It was not attractive, and I’ve been very shamed. I apologized to Mrs. Ferraro, and I would apologize again.” Daughter-in-law Laura Bush, wife of the 43rd president, said Mrs. Bush was “ferociously tarttongued.”
“She’s never shied away from saying what she thinks. She’s managed to insult nearly all of my friends with one or another perfectly timed acerbic comment,” Laura Bush wrote in her 2010 book, “Spoken from the Heart.”
In her 1994 autobiography, “Barbara Bush: A Memoir,” Mrs. Bush said she did her best to keep her opinions from the public while her husband was in office. But she revealed that she disagreed with him on two issues: She supported legal abortion and opposed the sale of assault weapons.
She also disclosed a bout with depression in the mid-1970s, saying she sometimes feared she would deliberately crash her car. She blamed hormonal changes and stress.
“Night after night, George held me weeping in his arms while I tried to explain my feelings,” she wrote. “I almost wonder why he didn’t leave me.”
She said she snapped out of it in a few months.
Mrs. Bush raised five children: George W., Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. A sixth child, 3-year-old daughter Robin, died of leukemia in 1953.
In a speech in 1985, she recalled the stress of raising a family while married to a man whose ambitions carried him from the Texas oil fields to Congress and into influential political positions that included ambassador to the United Nations, GOP chairman and CIA director.
“This was a period, for me, of long days and short years,” she said.
In 2003, she wrote a follow-up memoir, “Reflections: Life After the White House.”
“I made no apologies for the fact that I still live a life of ease,” she wrote. “There is a difference between ease and leisure. I live the former and not the latter.”
The 43rd president was not the only Bush son to seek office in the 1990s. In 1994, when George W. was elected governor of Texas, son Jeb narrowly lost to incumbent Lawton Chiles in Florida. Four years later, Jeb was victorious in his second try in Florida.
“This is a testament to what wonderful parents they are,” George W. Bush said as Jeb Bush was sworn into office. He won a second term in 2002.
Sons Marvin and Neil both became businessmen. Neil achieved some notoriety in the 1980s as a director of a savings and loan that crashed. Daughter Dorothy, or Doro, has preferred to stay out of the spotlight. She married lobbyist Robert Koch, a Democrat, in 1992.
Mrs. Bush was born Barbara Pierce in Rye, N.Y. Her father was the publisher of McCall’s and Redbook magazines. After attending Smith College for two years, she married young naval aviator George Herbert Walker Bush. She was 19.
“She’s never shied away from saying what she thinks. She’s managed to insult nearly all of my friends with [a] perfectly timed acerbic comment.”
Laura Bush, in 2010book