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How did Barbara Bush die? Here on famously-dead.com, you can view information about Barbara Bush's death and other famous deaths. You can view by name or by cause of death. We also have included the most popular famous deaths.
Barbara Bush's Death
- Barbara Bush
- Politics
- June 8, 1925
- April 17, 2018
- Heart Failure
The life and death of Barbara Bush:
This very popular First Lady of the United States may not have had the pizzazz of Jackie Kennedy, Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, Michelle Obama or Melania Trump. She conveyed a more grandmotherly image. But she did make several historical contributions just the same.
She was born Barbara Pierce in New York City to Marvin Pierce - who later became the publisher of McCall’s and Redbook magazines. Her mother was the former Pauline Robinson.
The family moved to suburban Rye, New York where Barbara grew up with an older sister and brother – Martha and James and a younger brother named Scott.
Barbara attended grade schools in Rye and later attended boarding school at Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina.
She met her future husband George H. W. Bush when she was 16 at a country club dance in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her future husband was part of a very politically connected family. (Some consider the Bush family the Republican version of the Kennedy clan in the Democratic Party.) Barbara’s father-in-law Prescott Bush was a long-term U. S. Senator from Connecticut.
Barbara and George were engaged to be married just before he went into the Navy to serve as a jet bomber in World War II. They married on January 6, 1945…
…and moved their family to Midland, Texas in 1950.
Her husband George served in various roles for the US government, including Congressman from Texas, Ambassador to the United Nations, head of the Republican National Committee, Director of the CIA and he was elected President of the United States, succeeding Ronald Reagan in 1988. (George H.W. Bush had also served as Reagan’s vice president for eight years from 1980-1988.)
George H.W. Bush was a one term president and Barbara did her best to stay out of the politics of her husband’s administration - saying to the effect “I stay out of his politics and he stays out of my household.”
She had a mild-mannered persona in public but was known for her tart tongued nature in private for famously slinging some sharp zingers.
Consider her reference to one-time Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, saying she wouldn’t comment on TV what she really thought of her but added “it rhymed with rich.” Mrs. Bush later apologized for the comment.
They had five surviving children together. (A daughter Robin died of Leukemia at age three.) Her children included George W. Bush who was elected President of the United States and served two terms from 2000 to 2008.
That made Barbara Bush only one of two women who was a First Lady and mother of a president. The only other First Lady in that category was Abigail Adams, wife of the second President John Adams and mother of President No. 6, John Quincy Adams.
But Mrs. Bush had something over Mrs. Adams because she lived long enough to see her son sworn into office.
In fact, she saw it happen twice.
And as First Lady, she helped develop the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and saw her memoir published.
Here she is making a Wellesley College Commencement, which created some controversy when she was invited.
One of Barbara Bush’s other sons, Jeb, went on to his own political career serving as governor of Florida but lost in his bid for the presidency in 2016 when he ran into the candidacy of Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
Some of the harsh things that Trump said about Jeb during the campaign did not sit well with Barbara - and she was not much of a fan of the Trump administration.
She was in poor health for the last several years of her life, including Graves Disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure.
In mid-April 2018 she checked herself out of the hospital near the family home in Houston, Texas and decided to go home after doctors told her there was not much else they could do for her and her congestive heart failure.
She died peacefully at the age of 92 at home, surrounded by loved ones just two days later. And the country mourned her passing.
Her gravesite can be found at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.