MRS. BUSH RELISHED TIME SPENT IN FLORIDA
Former first lady Barbara Bush’s ties to South Florida were anchored by family, friends and philanthropy.
The matriarch of the Bush family, who died Tuesday at 92, campaigned for her sons, swam in the warm waters off Palm Beach and cradled babies with AIDS in West Palm Beach during the height of the epidemic in the early 1990s.
Her passing comes days after it was announced that she was in failing health and had decided to forego future medical treatment, focusing instead on “comfort care.”
Barbara Bush will be remembered in South Florida for her humor-infused speeches, enthusiasm for the causes she supported and empathy toward those
in need.
“It’s important to know that you can love and hug and change these babies and be spit upon and you can’t get AIDS,” she said in a 1990 visit to Connor’s Nursery in West Palm Beach — the state’s only shelter at the time for children with AIDS. “You can’t get AIDS from holding babies. If I didn’t know that before, I learned that from Ryan White.”
Her son, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and mother-in-law, Dorothy Walker Bush, often received her as a guest in their homes in South Florida and on Jupiter Island.
Former President George Bush’s father, Prescott Bush, bought a home on Jupiter Island in the 1960s. It’s a place where the family vacationed for decades and where Dorothy Walker Bush lived for part of the year until near her death at 91 in 1992.
In 1988, Barbara Bush arrived triumphantly at Palm Beach International Airport with her president-elect husband for the couple’s first vacation since the Republican convention three months earlier.
They were accompanied by their English springer spaniel, Millie, and greeted by then Gov. Bob Martinez, his wife and other supporters. George Bush told reporters that everything was “perfect.”
The couple spent the weekend with longtime friend, William Stamps Farish III, at his oceanfront home in Gulf Stream.
One of Barbara Bush’s official photographers was former Palm Beach Post and Miami Herald photographer Carol Powers, who accepted the post in the White House in 1989. Powers worked at The Post in 1983 and 1984.
In 1992, Barbara Bush made a fundraising visit to Florida, stopping at the Poinciana Club in Palm Beach for a $1,000-a-plate dinner for her husband’s re-election campaign. The stop was part of a statewide tour that raised $216,000 in Palm Beach County alone.
After her time as first lady ended, she still returned to the Sunshine State.
In 1999, she traveled to South Florida to visit her son, Jeb Bush, where she read to children at the Feinberg/Fisher Elementary and Adult Education Center in Miami Beach. She was there to help kick off the governor’s Family Literacy Initiative.
Barbara Bush stumped in Florida for Jeb during his 2002 campaign for governor. Weeks before the election, she told family stories that earned laughs from an audience in Cape Coral and doled out grandmotherly advice.
“Never lend your car to someone you gave birth to, or somebody they gave birth to,” she said.
In 2003, Barbara Bush spoke at The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, sharing what she learned during her life, including “don’t take life too seriously.”
Another pearl of wisdom she shared during that 2003 visit: “Life is a gift, and we must not waste it.”