Barbara Bush

Barbara Pierce Bush (born June 8, 1925) is the wife of the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, and was First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993. She is the mother of current U.S. President George W. Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and the sister of Scott Pierce.

Early life

Barbara Pierce 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. She was born and raised in the suburban town of Rye, New York, near New York City and went to Rye Country Day School, followed by boarding school at Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina.

Her ancestor, an early New England colonist named Thomas Pierce, was also the ancestor to Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States.

Her mother — whom W magazine once described as "beautiful, fabulous, critical, and meddling" and "a former beauty from Ohio with extravagant tastes" — was killed in a car accident. The accident was caused when her husband, who was driving, lost control when he reached over to stop a cup of hot coffee from sliding across the seat onto his wife. The car crashed into a stone wall, killing her instantly.

Marriage and family

It was at a dance during Christmas vacation when she was 17 that she met George H. W. Bush, a student at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. One and a half years later, the two engaged, just before he went off to World War II as a Navy torpedo bomber pilot. When he returned on leave, she had dropped out of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Two weeks later, on January 6, 1945, they married. After the war, he graduated from Yale University, and they moved to Midland, Texas. Six children were born to them:

George Walker Bush (6 July 1946- ) 43rd President of the United States and 46th Governor of Texas
Pauline Robinson "Robin" Bush (20 December 1949 - October 11, 1953, died of leukemia);
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (11 February 1953- ); 43rd Governor of Florida
Neil Mallon Bush (22 January 1955- );
Marvin Pierce Bush (22 October 1956- )
Dorothy Bush Koch (August 18, 1959 - ).
Meanwhile, George H. W. Bush built a business in the oil industry. The Bush family moved 29 times over the years. She raised her children while her husband, who served in a variety of government jobs, was away.

Later life

Today, she lives with her husband in Houston, Texas, and at their sprawling estate, the Bush Compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Two primary schools in Texas, a Houston Independent School District school, and a school in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie, are named after her. The Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine is named after Bush. Also named for her is one of George W. Bush's twin daughters. They are frequent honored guests at the White House. She serves on the Boards of AmeriCares and the Mayo Clinic, and heads the Barbara Bush Foundation.

The Gulf War years

In her 1994 autobiography, Barbara Bush provides intimate insights on many events of the Greoge Herbert Walker Bush presidency. Among them, perhaps most significant, are descriptions of events pertaining to the 1991 Gulf War.

January 13, 1991 [Today] Congress was set to vote on whether George had the right to use arms in the Persian Gulf. The House and the Senate passed a joint resolution backing George. Regrettably, much of the Democratic leadership fought and voted against it.
Barbara Bush gives intimate report about how her husband felt at the eve of the Gulf War and what she thought

January 16 - 23, 1991 George told me last night that they decided that it [the war] would start tonight. All America is praying and we are, too. As we said our prayers, his voice cracked and his eyes got misty. I know that those innocent children get to him.
I watched the war on CNN and I thought of the children in Israel and the children here in our country. I hope parents are monitoring what their children are seeing on the television and helping them over this brutal time.[3]
She tells about the sorrow with which her husband wrote letters to families of dead soldiers and the exhilaration she felt when the war was won.

January 24, 1991 Sometimes God acts in strange ways...ways we do not understand right away. The fact is your husband gave his life not simply so a small country could once again be free, but so those kids of yours will have a better chance to grow up in a world more peaceful, more just.
March 2, 1991 I wish I could freeze the newspaper columns in a time capsule. They are raving over George today. I am so proud of him and his team I could burst.
March 1993 We went to Kuwait as guests of the Kuwaiti government. We saw such devastation and heard tales of horror. We heard of rapes[4] and visited a hospital where babies in incubators were put on the floor so the machines could either be broken or taken as a loot.
Barbara Bush also repeats stories which, ex post and under scrutiny, turned out to be fabrications, helping her husband and her son to initiate wars that according to some prevented and according to others resulted in deaths of thousands people.