Mourners pay respect to former first lady
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — Three days of formal mourning for former first lady Nancy Reagan began Wednesday as her casket was taken in a police-escorted motorcade up an empty freeway for a public viewing at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
The procession from Santa Monica, Calif., passed beneath a large American flag on a stretch of normally congested highway and then turned onto the Ronald Reagan Freeway where firefighters in dress blues saluted from atop firetrucks parked on overpasses and other observers held their hands over their hearts.
As the procession turned up the long, steep driveway to the library in the hills of Simi Valley, more than 100 docents held small flags.
Members of the armed services carried the casket past a gurgling courtyard fountain into the library, where daughter Patti Davis, dressed in black, was among about 20 family members and close friends who attended a short prayer service at the closed casket.
“May angels surround her and saints release her to Jesus,” the Rev. Stuart Kenworthy, vicar at Washington National Cathedral, said during the 10- minute service.
Th e Re v. Donn Moomaw, the Reagan family’s pastor, read from the 23rd Psalm, which begins, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
Attendees included the children of Ronald Reagan’s son Michael and Dennis Revell, the widower of the president’s late daughter Maureen. Michael Reagan and the president’s other son, Ron Prescott Reagan, are expected at Friday’s funeral.
After the private service, House Speaker Paul Ryan paid his respects, bowing his head in prayer and making the sign of the cross.
The casket was covered in white roses and peonies, Mrs. Reagan’s favorite flower.
Earlier in the day, after a short private service at a Santa Monica funeral home, the casket was carried by pallbearers including members of Reagan’s Secret Service detail to a hearse for the final 45-mile journey to the hill country northwest of Los Angeles where two days of public viewing precede the funeral.
Several hundred onlookers stretched along the boulevard leading away from the Tudor-style funeral home, holding up cellphones and cameras.
“She was just a very classy woman, always,” said Jeanie Maurello, a medical assistant at Providence St. John’s Health Center.