Barbara Bush with her husband and a very young George W. Bush in 1955 in Rye, N.Y., where Mrs. Bush grew up.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Mrs. Bush reading to children at a day care center in New York in 1990. Literacy and civil rights were two causes she championed.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Mrs. Bush in a 1988 portrait of the Bush clan at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Me., during her husband’s vice presidency. George W. Bush sits next to Mrs. Bush.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Mrs. Bush at a 2015 presidential campaign rally in Miami for her son Jeb. Mrs. Bush is flanked by Columba Bush, Jeb’s wife, and George P. Bush, his son.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Mrs. Bush with her son Jeb at a rally in Derry, New Hampshire in 2016.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush at the presidential inauguration of her husband, George HW Bush, in Washington on 20 January 1989.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush with her eldest son, the 43rd US president, George W Bush, at a presentation about Medicare in Atlanta, Georgia, 2005.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush holding the family dog Millie in 1988; she ghostwrote Millie’s memoirs to raise money in support of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.
Gallery of Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush with her husband, five children and grandchildren in the White House, 1989.
Mrs. Bush in a 1988 portrait of the Bush clan at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Me., during her husband’s vice presidency. George W. Bush sits next to Mrs. Bush.
Mrs. Bush at a 2015 presidential campaign rally in Miami for her son Jeb. Mrs. Bush is flanked by Columba Bush, Jeb’s wife, and George P. Bush, his son.
Barbara Bush holding the family dog Millie in 1988; she ghostwrote Millie’s memoirs to raise money in support of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.
Barbara Pierce Bush was the wife of the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, and served as First Lady of the United States from. She is the mother of the 43rd President, George W. Bush and of the 43rd Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. She has also served as Second Lady of the United States.
Background
Barbara Pierce was born at Booth Memorial Hospital in the borough of Queens, in New York City, and raised in the suburban town of Rye, New York. She was the third child of 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 (1920–1999); James Pierce (1921–1993), and Scott Pierce (born 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 the fourth cousin, four times removed, and the second cousin, five times removed, of President Franklin Pierce.
Education
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.
When she began Smith College, Barbara Bush wrote that it opened her perceptions about the world: it was the first racially integrated school she attended. She also made the freshman soccer team and served as captain. In 1943, "Bar," as her friends and family had taken to calling her, dropped out of Smith College in her freshman year.
Career
Barbara Bush was always an asset to her husband during his campaigns for public office. Her friendly, forthright manner won her high marks from the voters and the press. As wife of the Vice President, she selected the promotion of literacy as her special cause. As First Lady, she called working for a more literate America the "most important issue we have." Involved with many organizations devoted to this cause, she became Honorary Chairman of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. A strong advocate of volunteerism, Mrs. Bush helped many causes - including the homeless, AIDS, the elderly, and school volunteer programs.
During her husband's 1992 presidential campaign, Barbara Bush stated that abortion and homosexuality are personal matters 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." She explained, "I hate abortions, but I just could not make that choice for someone else."
The hallmark of Barbara Bush's tenure as First Lady was her focused campaign to bring national attention to, and help eradicate illiteracy in America. Early in the administration, Barbara founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, a private organization that solicited grants from public and private institutions to support literacy programs. At the time of her tenure, statistics showed that 35 million adults could not read above the eight-grade level and that 23 million were not beyond a fourth-grade level. One aspect of adopting literacy as an issue that provided Barbara Bush with an opportunity to address a wide variety of topical issues was, as she pointed out, that a person's inability to read or fully comprehend what they might be able to partially read could have a devastating impact on all elements of their lives. She did go on record as stating that she did not believe there should be a law that established English as the official language of the United States because she felt it had "racial overtones." Thus she was able to address many social problems that were unique to the era of her husband's presidency of the early 1990's like homelessness, AIDS, and teenage pregnancy.
During her first week in the White House, Barbara Bush brought national attention to the needs of indigent and homeless families by making a visit to "Martha's Table" an inner-city center providing meals for poor families and daytime and after-school activities for homeless children, and also running a mobile soup-and-sandwich kitchen through the streets of Washington. She donated her family's used clothing to thrift stores which raised money for charitable organizations and also offered low-cost resale to the needy. Often visiting homeless family shelters, Barbara Bush also publicly raised an issue that was rarely considered in coping with the problem - abandoned, single, unmarried mothers, many of them teenagers, who were receiving no help from the fathers of the children. Although she assumed the traditional view of the Republican Party that social programs were best funded and administered by private charities and organizations rather than by the government, she was not averse to claiming government responsibility in some cases, once remarking at a center for homeless children, "forget about government cutbacks."
Barbara Bush made the front page of many global newspapers when, during a visit to "Grandma's House," a pediatric AIDS care center, she held a baby infected with the virus and posed for photographers to record what was then an act that was often misunderstood as making one susceptible to contracting it. She then went to hug an adult with AIDS as well. She took the President to the National Institute of Health to meet with male patients who had AIDS, and attended the funeral of the heroic teenager Ryan White who succumbed to AIDS after leading a long public education campaign on the issue. When there was an AIDS memorial vigil where gatherers held candles, she placed candles in all the White House windows and asked several family members of those who had died of the illness to bring to her in the White House parts of a national AIDS quilt that was then on display on the national mall. Although she told the press that because of the federal deficit, increased funding was an issue the President would have to decide, Timemagazine credited Barbara Bush's concern for those with AIDS for influencing the President to propose increased research and treatment funding. She was further credited as being the inside advocate for the President's signing of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act and invited the first openly gay and lesbian citizens to the presidential signing ceremony.
The first First Lady to hire an African-American as her press secretary, Barbara Bush made numerous gestures to illustrate the long personal commitment that she and her husband held regarding civil rights of African Americans. Throughout her four years in the White House, she headlined numerous Martin Luther King Day programs in local grammar schools. She also gave particular attention to traditionally black colleges, having once served on the board of Morehouse College, a medical school largely attended by African-Americans. Washington Post reporter David Broder credited Barbara Bush with being behind the appointment of Louis Sullivan as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the only African-American member of the Bush Cabinet. Among those she listed as heroines were the liberal Democratic Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan and Dorothy Height, the civil rights leaders and friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, and named Frederick Douglass as the historic figure who most inspired her. Among the thousands of graduation ceremonies she was invited to address in the spring of 1989, Barbara Bush chose a relatively obscure black woman's college, Bennett College. She encouraged a group of black Muslims to patrol an inner-city neighborhood plagued by drug crime. In an extensive interview with a leading African-American publication, Ebony, Barbara Bush bluntly addressed the realities of racial bigotry as she witnessed it from her unique perspective. She also emphasized that her influence as a "white-haired white lady" was limited within minority communities and that the primary role she could play was to speak out on prejudice.
In 1990, Barbara Bush was asked to speak at Wellesley College, sparking an unexpected reaction from the women students. Many didn’t want her to speak because they felt she defined herself solely through the person she married, rather than as an individual with her own life and interests. Barbara Bush understood their reaction, quipping "I was twenty myself." She nevertheless considered the invitation a serious opportunity to address what she believed was both an opportunity and conflict that was unique to women coming of age at that time, the desire to have both a family and a career. Bringing Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of Soviet President, with her, Barbara Bush’s speech was well received by the students; it was a gracious, serious but humorous look at diversity, a changing world and a woman’s role in that world. She said that perhaps some one in the audience might one day follow in her footsteps as an aide, supporter and helpmate to a President, ". . . and I wishhim well!"
Within the first 100 days of the Bush Administration, the First Lady polled higher approval ratings than did the President or Vice President and a "fan club" even formed in San Francisco for her. Her clothing style generated interest with the creation of "Barbara Blue" by the Color Association of the U.S. and many commercial copies of her signature three-strand pearls. When her springer spaniel dog "Millie" gave birth to puppies, it made the cover of Life magazine and attracted overwhelming feature news coverage. In her slippers and housecoat, she walked her dog around the White House lawn, and in sneakers and jeans, she walked him at the presidential summer retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine. The dog and puppies became closely associated with the First Lady. When she was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, she publicly disclosed all details about her coping with the thyroid condition. At the first game played by the newly-created Texas Rangers baseball team that was partially owned by her son, George W., Barbara Bush became the first First Lady to throw out a ball to open the baseball season. She attributed her great popularity to her matronly figure and white hair because it was a benign identity and one which many middle-aged and older American women could relate. She was, she said, "Everybody's mother."
As a Vice President's wife, Barbara Bush was able to observe the often difficult relationship between her predecessor Nancy Reagan and the press with relative ease. She learned much about the importance of political figures to cultivate their public images by emphasizing some aspects of their real selves over other aspects that might make them appear less accessible or able to relate to the general population. Thus, she was cautious to avoid all political controversy and refrain from sharing her insight into the state of politics.
Mrs. Bush's primary cause through the years has been promoting literacy. She believes that so many of our nation's problems would be solved if every man, woman and child could read, write and comprehend. She is against discrimination of all kinds: race, religion, sexual orientation.
Quotations:
“If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities." — Barbara Bush
Membership
Texas Federation Republican Women (life)
International The second Club (Washington)
Magic Circle Republican Women's Club (Houston)
Young Women’s Christian Association.
White House Historical Association
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Barbara Bush is described by her closest intimates as prone to "withering stares" and "sharply crystalline" retorts. She is also extremely tough. When he was seven, Bush's younger sister, Robin, died of leukaemia and several independent witnesses say he was very upset by this loss. Barbara claims its effect was exaggerated but nobody could accuse her of overreacting: the day after the funeral, she and her husband were on the golf course.(George Bush)
She was the main authority-figure in the home. Jeb describes it as having been, "A kind of matriarchy... when we were growing up, dad wasn't at home. Mom was the one to hand out the goodies and the discipline." A childhood friend recalls that,"She was the one who instilled fear", while Bush put it like this: "Every mother has her own style. Mine was a little like an army drill sergeant's... my mother's always been a very outspoken person who vents very well - she'll just let rip if she's got something on her mind." According to his uncle, the "letting rip" often included slaps and hits. Countless studies show that boys with such mothers are at much higher risk of becoming wild, alcoholic or antisocial.
Connections
After the war, George graduated from Yale, and they set out for Texas to start their lives together. Six children were born to them.The couple's first child, the future President George Walker Bush, was born in 1946. In 1949, Barbara and George H.W. welcomed a second child, a daughter named Pauline Robinson Bush. In 1953, the child, nicknamed Robin, died of leukemia, leaving Barbara and her husband devastated. Their third child, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, had been born just prior to Robin's diagnosis. Bush went on to have two more sons—Neil Mallon Bush in 1955 and Marvin Pierce Bush in 1956—before giving birth to another daughter. Dorothy "Doro" Bush was born in August 1959.
Recipient National Outstanding Mother of Year award
1984, Woman of Year award United Service Organizations, 1986, Distinguished Leadership award United Negro College Fund 1986, Distinguished American Woman award Mount St. Joseph College, 1987, Free Spirit award Freedom Forum, 1995.
1984, Woman of Year award United Service Organizations, 1986, Distinguished Leadership award United Negro College Fund 1986, Distinguished American Woman award Mount St. Joseph College, 1987, Free Spirit award Freedom Forum, 1995.
Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged,
USA
In 1995, Bush received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
In 1995, Bush received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
The Miss America Woman of Achievement Award,
USA
In 1997, she was the recipient of The Miss America Woman of Achievement Award for her work with literacy programs.
In 1997, she was the recipient of The Miss America Woman of Achievement Award for her work with literacy programs.