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Barbara Pierce Bush (born June 8, 1925) is the wife of the 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush, and mother of the 43rd President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. She is one of only two women to be both wife and mother to US presidents, the other being Abigail Adams. She served as First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, while her husband was President. Previously she had served as Second Lady of the United States for eight years. As wife of the Vice President and then President, and continuing after leaving Washington, she supported the cause of universal literacy.
ara was the third child of the former Pauline Robinson (1896–1949) and her husband, Marvin Pierce (1893–1969), who later became president of McCall Corporation, the publisher of the popular women's magazines Redbook and McCall's.
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Quotations
Avoid this crowd like the plague. And if they quote you, make damn sure they heard you.
Advice about news reporters, to incoming first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a tour of the White House, as quoted in Newsweek magazine (30 November 1992)
Encyclopedia
Barbara Pierce Bush (born June 8, 1925) is the wife of the 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush, and mother of the 43rd President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. She is one of only two women to be both wife and mother to US presidents, the other being Abigail Adams. She served as First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, while her husband was President. Previously she had served as Second Lady of the United States for eight years. As wife of the Vice President and then President, and continuing after leaving Washington, she supported the cause of universal literacy.
Early life
Barbara was the third child of the former Pauline Robinson (1896–1949) and her husband, Marvin Pierce (1893–1969), who later became president of McCall Corporation, the publisher of the popular women's magazines Redbook and McCall's. Her siblings include Martha Pierce Rafferty (1920); James Pierce (1921-1993) and Scott Pierce (1930). Her ancestor Thomas Pierce, an early New England colonist, was also an ancestor of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States. She is a direct descendant, great-great-granddaughter, of James Pierce, Jr. who was a fourth cousin of President Pierce.
Barbara was born at Booth Memorial Hospital in Flushing, Queens in New York City, and raised in the suburban town of Rye, New York. Her mother was killed in a car accident in September 1949.
Barbara attended Rye Country Day School from 1931 to 1937 and later boarding school at Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina (from 1940 to 1943). She was athletic as a youth and enjoyed swimming, tennis, and bike-riding. Her interest in reading began early in her life; she recalls gathering with her family during the evenings and reading together.
Marriage and family
She met George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush, a student at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, at age sixteen during a dance over Christmas vacation. After a year-and-a-half, the two became engaged to be married, just before he went off to World War II as a Navy torpedo bomber pilot. He named three of his planes after her: Barbara, Barbara II, and Barbara III. When he returned on leave, she had dropped out of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Two weeks later, on January 6, 1945, they married. He graduated from Yale University following the end of the war; they soon moved to Midland, Texas.
She gave birth to six children:
- George W. Bush (born July 6, 1946), 43rd President of the United States and 46th Governor of Texas
- Pauline Robinson "Robin" Bush (December 20, 1949 – October 11, 1953, died of leukemia)
- John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953), 43rd Governor of Florida
- Neil Mallon Bush (born January 22, 1955)
- Marvin Pierce Bush (born October 22, 1956)
- Dorothy Bush Koch (born August 18, 1959)
During that time, George H. W. Bush built a business in the oil industry, where he founded Zapata Corporation. The Bush family moved 30 times over the years. Barbara raised her children while her husband, who served in a variety of government jobs, was usually away.
The First Lady of the United States
Barbara Bush's cause as First Lady was literacy, as it was when she was Second Lady, calling it "the most important issue we have". She was also active with the White House Historical Association and worked to revitalize the White House Preservation Fund, which she renamed the White House Endowment Trust. The trust raises funds for the ongoing refurbishment and restoration of the White House. She met her goal of raising $25 million towards the endowment.
Bush was known for her affection for her pet English Springer Spaniel Millie and wrote a child's book about Millie's new litter of puppies. Barbara Bush became the first U.S. First Lady to become a recipient of the Henry G. Freeman Jr. Pin Money Fund, receiving $36,000, most of which she gave to favorite charities.
Later life
Since leaving the White House, she and her husband reside in Houston, Texas and at the Bush Compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Several schools have been named for her: three primary schools and two middle schools in Texas and an elementary school in Mesa, Arizona. Also named for her is the Barbara Bush Library in Harris County, Texas and the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine.
Bush was initiated into Beta Sigma Phi women's fraternity as an alumna honor initiate and also was initiated into the Texas Eta chapter (Texas A&M University) of Pi Beta Phi women's fraternity in 2002 as an alumna honor initiate. Even before her initiation, she served as honorary chairperson of the fraternity's literacy philanthropy.
She serves on the Boards of AmeriCares and the Mayo Clinic, and heads the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. In 2006, it was revealed that Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush–Clinton Katrina Fund on the condition the charity do business with an educational software company owned by her son Neil Bush.
Health problems
Bush disclosed she was suffering from an overactive thyroid ailment known as Graves' disease when she lived at the White House. The disease causes teary eyes and double vision.
George H.W. Bush came down with Graves disease not long after his wife. The odds of two people (not related by blood) developing Graves disease within two years of each other is rare.
The Bush dog, Millie, came down with Graves' disease, too, although there are reports Millie had a different auto-immune disease, lupus.
Because of the remarkable coincidence of three cases of auto-immune disease in one household, the Secret Service tested the water in the White House, at Camp David, at the Vice President's residence, and at Walker's Point (Bush's home in Maine) for lithium and iodine, two substances "known to cause thyroid problems".
November 2008 Bush was hospitalized for abdominal pains. On November 25, a dime-sized hole in her small intestine, that was caused by an ulcer, was closed by surgeons. She was released December 2, 2008 and was reported to be doing well.
Bush underwent aortic valve replacement surgery on March 4, 2009, and she is reportedly recovered and doing well
Outspoken commentary
Barbara Bush has a reputation for being outspoken in comments she has made to the press.
In 1984, Bush told the press that she could not say on television what she thought of then Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, but "it rhymes with rich".
During her husband's 1992 presidential campaign, Barbara Bush stated that abortion is a personal matter and argued that the Republican Party platform should not take a stand on it, saying that "The personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, platforms and conventions." Her personal views on abortion were not known, although her friends reported at that time that she "privately supported abortion rights".
Commenting on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Barbara said "Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is."
On March 18, 2003, two days before the beginning of the war on Iraq, ABC's Good Morning America asked her about her family's television viewing habits; she replied:
I watch none. He [former President Bush] sits and listens and I read books, because I know perfectly well that, don't take offense, that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that, and watch him suffer.
While visiting a Houston relief center for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Bush told the radio program Marketplace,
Almost everyone I've talked to says, 'We're gonna move to Houston.' What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas... Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, and so many of the people in the arenas here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.
Footnotes
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