Barbara Bush, former U.S. First Lady, dies at 92

Barbara Bush, the matriarch of a Republican political dynasty and a First Lady who elevated the cause of literacy, died Tuesday, according to a statement from her husband’s office. She was 92.

Only the second woman in American history to have had a husband and a son elected President (Abigail Adams was the first), Bush was seen as a plainspoken public figure who was instantly recognizable with her signature white hair and pearl necklaces and earrings. 

She became a major political figure as her husband, George H.W. Bush, rose to become vice president and president. 

After they left the White House, she was a potent spokeswoman for two of her sons — George W. and Jeb — as they campaigned for office.

The mother of six children — one of whom, a daughter, Robin, died as a child from leukemia — Barbara Bush raised her fast-growing family in the 1950s and ’60s amid the post-war boom of Texas and the whirl of politics that consumed her husband.

She was at his side during his nearly 30-year political career. He was a US representative for Texas, UN ambassador, Republican Party chairman, ambassador to China and CIA director. 

He then became Ronald Reagan’s vice president for two terms and won election to the White House in 1988. He left office in 1993 afafter losing a re-election bid to Bill Clinton.

Quick-witted with a sharp tongue, the feisty Barbara Bush was a fierce defender of her husband and an astute adviser.

As First Lady, her principal persona as a devoted wife and mother contrasted in many ways with her peer and predecessor, Nancy Reagan, and her younger successor, Hillary Clinton, both of whom were seen as more intimately involved in their husbands’ presidencies.

Still, Barbara Bush promoted women’s rights, and her strong personal views sometimes surfaced publicly and raised eyebrows — especially when they clashed with Republican Party politics. 

For instance, she once said as her husband ran for president that abortion should not be politicized.

She also was not shy about the possibility of a female president, disarming a Wellesley College audience at a 1990 appearance protested by some on campus who questioned her credentials to address female graduates aiming for the workplace.

“Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps and preside over the White House as the president’s spouse.

“I wish him well,” she said.

Childhood and Family Life

Barbara Pierce was born June 8, 1925, in New York and raised in the upscale town of Rye. 

She attended a prestigious boarding school in South Carolina, where she met her future husband at a school dance when she was only 16 and he was a year older. 

A year and a half and countless love letters later, the two were engaged just before George Bush enlisted in the Navy and went off to fight in World War II.

Bush, who was the youngest fighter pilot in the Navy at the time, would return home a war hero, after being shot down by the Japanese. 

He had flown 58 combat missions and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery. By that time, Barbara had dropped out of Smith College and the pair were married in January 1945.

They raised their family mainly in Texas, where George H.W. Bush, the son of a US senator, was in the oil business and later entered politics.

Barbara Bush’s dedication to keeping order at home earned her the nickname “the enforcer.”