JUDY WOODRUFF: She was a wife and mother to
presidents, but a lack of pretension and a
sense of humor that could be self-deprecating
were what endeared Barbara Bush to the American
people.
She stood out in a crowd, with a shock of
white hair that earned her the family nickname
Silver Fox.
It was part of Barbara Bush's determination
to be herself, as she recalled in 2004 for
a PBS documentary.
BARBARA BUSH, Former First Lady: Who's jealous
of an overweight, white-haired woman?
Nobody.
So, I think that was in my benefit, in a way.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The future first lady was born
Barbara Pierce in New York City in 1925, to
Marvin and Pauline Pierce.
Her father was president of McCall Corporation,
of "Redbook" and "McCall" magazine fame.
The family lived in Rye, New York, where Barbara
grew up with three siblings.
From there, she went off to Smith College,
but in 1945, she dropped out to marry George
Bush, who was on leave from the Navy.
They'd met four years earlier.
The couple moved to Texas in 1948 with their
first child, a son, George W. He was soon
joined by a sister, Robin.
But she developed leukemia and died at the
age of 3, a tragedy that reshaped the family.
Three other children followed, and Barbara
went on to oversee a total of 27 moves, as
her husband's career took them around the
world, from Texas, where he built his fortune
in the oil fields, to politics and public
life.
In the 1960s and '70s, Barbara was by his
side for two losing U.S. Senate bids, a winning
campaign for a U.S. House seat, and stints
as U.N. ambassador, chair of the Republican
Party and CIA director.
In 1980, he ran for president and ultimately
ended up as Ronald Reagan's running mate.
As a political spouse, Barbara Bush's wry
sense of humor endeared her to many, but she
later acknowledged it didn't suit everyone.
BARBARA BUSH: Well, I tried to behave myself,
but I'm a little impulsive.
So, occasionally, I said things I was sort
of sorry I said, but I think I believed them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: That tendency caused her trouble
in 1984 when she referred to Geraldine Ferraro,
the Democratic vice presidential nominee,
as something that -- quote -- "rhymes with
rich."
Mrs. Bush quickly apologized.
She remained plainspoken after her husband
won the White House for himself in 1988.
Right from the start, the new first lady set
a new tone, downplaying fashion, for instance,
in sharp contrast with her predecessor, Nancy
Reagan.
BARBARA BUSH: Please notice the hair, the
makeup, designer clothes.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
BARBARA BUSH: And, remember, you may never
see it again.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: In 1989, she even wore camouflage
gear on a trip to Saudi Arabia during the
first Gulf War to visit with U.S. troops at
Thanksgiving.
Mrs. Bush also made dogs a fixture in the
first family's life.
Millie, their springer spaniel, had the run
of the White House.
Millie produced a famous litter of puppies,
displayed before the Washington press corps
when they were just a few days old.
QUESTION: Do you really want to keep one?
BARBARA BUSH: Well, I haven't -- haven't won
that battle yet.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In time, Mrs. Bush was inspired
to write a bestselling children's work, titled
"Millie's Book."
She reminisced about it in 2012 at the George
W. Bush Presidential Library.
BARBARA BUSH: And she made over a million
dollars for charity.
As George says, I worked all my life, got
the highest job maybe in the world, and my
dog made more money than I did.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Writing her own book was just
part of a larger campaign for literacy in
America.
Barbara Bush took an active role in several
literacy organizations, including the one
she founded.
BARBARA BUSH: Remember, we have a new baby
in the house.
I have now spent more than 25 years promoting
family literacy, as I truly believe that being
able to read, write and comprehend is one
of the Keys to a very successful, happy life,
and that a literate society is important to
keeping our country safe and strong.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But when it came to her husband's
presidency, the first lady turned political
fighter.
She staunchly defended his failed reelection
bid in 1992 in a "NewsHour" interview at the
Republican National Convention.
BARBARA BUSH: What's the matter with Americans?
You're in the best shape of any country in
the world.
Don't Americans know that when you achieve
peace ,it costs money?
Peace is costly?
We ought to be willing to pay for the fact
that we go to bed every single night of our
life freer and safer because of George Bush.
Things are turning, Judy, and they are coming
to a strong economy.
But we're going to have to all work for it.
But it's because we all have peace, and we
ought to be darn grateful to George Bush.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Eight years later, she was
back campaigning again, this time for her
son, George W. Bush, in his 2000 presidential
run.
Here she was in New Hampshire:
BARBARA BUSH: Thank you for all you're doing
for my boy.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JUDY WOODRUFF: And in 2016, she campaigned
yet again in New Hampshire with another son,
Jeb, as he made his ultimately-failed bid
for the Republican nomination.
BARBARA BUSH: It's great to be back in New
Hampshire.
The people have good values.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mrs. Bush made one of her last
public appearances in March, with her husband
and presidential scholars, in College Station,
Texas.
Campaigner, literacy advocate, first lady,
mother, and wife, and, as her family described
Barbara Bush, their linchpin.
Barbara Bush was 92 years old.
In Dallas today, her eldest child, President
George W. Bush, opened up about his family's
loss.
He sat down with the PBS public affairs show
"In Principle" hosted by Amy Holmes and Michael
Gerson, earlier served as one of the younger
President Bush's White House speechwriters.
Mr. Bush began by discussing his father and
how he was mourning.
GEORGE W. BUSH, Former President of the United
States: I'm very appreciative of the outpouring
of sympathies, particularly for my dad, you
know.
At age 93, he's going to miss mother.
After all, they were married for 73 years.
I'm comfortable with her passing because she
was comfortable with her passing.
And she told me point blank: "I do not fear
death.
I know there's a loving God."
And I have told my -- our daughters and some
of my brothers and sisters, wow, what a beautiful,
beautiful lesson.
I don't want to sound cavalier, but I truly
am at peace, and I feel very blessed.
And, plus, my mother, I can just hear her
saying, get on with your life and do something
good.
(LAUGHTER)
AMY HOLMES: What advice did your mom give
you about being president of the United States?
GEORGE W. BUSH: Keep your eye on the ball,
keep your nose to the grindstone.
And I told her, that's a hell of a position
to be in.
(LAUGHTER)
AMY HOLMES: A little awkward?
GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes.
There was a lot of psychobabble about my relationship
with my parents during the presidency, and
it's natural, because people haven't had a
chance to ask many presidents, what it's like
to be president with your father being a former
president and mother a former first lady?
And the most important thing they told me
was, "Son, I love you, and we're proud of
you," which is the most important thing any
parent can tell a child.
AMY HOLMES: So, Mr. President, did you have
a chance to say goodbye to your mom?
GEORGE W. BUSH: I did, yes.
Laura and I went over and saw her at the hospital.
She was doing pretty well, slightly feisty
still, which is a good sign.
And she and I used to kind of needle each
other in a friendly way.
And then the doctor walked into this hospital
room.
And mother said, "Do you want to know why
George W. is the way he is, Doctor?"
And the doctor didn't have any choice.
And mother said, "Because I drank and smoked
when I was pregnant with him."
(LAUGHTER)
GEORGE W. BUSH: So, I knew she was feeling
pretty good.
And then, a week later, she went downhill.
But she chose no -- didn't want to have any
life-sustaining care.
In other words, she was ready to move.
And they made her comfortable.
And I called her yesterday, when I had the
sense that she was ready to go.
She couldn't talk back, but I told her how
much I loved her.
And my brothers and sisters did the same thing.
And then she was by dad's side.
Interestingly enough, he sat there for, you
know, four or five hours, I'm told, and a
preacher came in and read the Bible, and my
brother Neil read mom's memoirs.
AMY HOLMES: Oh, wow.
GEORGE W. BUSH: So, it's a sweet scene, when
you think about it.
MICHAEL GERSON: That is sweet.
GEORGE W. BUSH: And, yes, she had a very fortunate
life and a very fortunate end in many ways.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch the full
interview Friday night at 8:30 on the PBS
program "In Principle."
And in a statement, the elder President Bush
said -- quote -- "I always knew Barbara was
the most beloved woman in the world.
And, in fact, I used to tease her that I had
a complex about that fact.
We have faith that she is in heaven, and we
know life will go on, as she would have it.
So, cross the Bushes off your worry list."
And now for a deeper look at the former first
lady's life, I'm joined by C. Boyden Gray,
who was White House counsel to President George
H.W. Bush and remains a close personal friend
to the Bush family, the Reverend Bonnie Steinroeder,
who served as the pastor at the church in
Kennebunkport that the Bush family attended
during their summers in Maine, and Susan Page,
White House bureau chief for USA Today and
the author of the upcoming book "The Matriarch:
Barbara Bush and the Making of an American
Dynasty," which will be out next year.
And thank you, all three, for joining us.
We do appreciate it.
Boyden Gray, I'm going to start with you.
It's so remarkable to me.
We just heard both Presidents Bush, comment
from them, one, saying, we are comfortable
with this.
She was comfortable with her passing.
We heard President H.W. Bush say, cross the
Bushes off your worry list.
That tells you a lot about her and about her
family, doesn't it?
C. BOYDEN GRAY, Former White House Counsel:
It says a great deal.
She went out the way she lived her life.
She did it her way.
She did it honestly.
She did it straightforwardly.
It was a great way, a dignified way to go.
And those of us who worked with them feel
so lucky to have been exposed to such -- to
such love and strength.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Susan, you have been working
on this book, which we mentioned, about Barbara
Bush that's coming out next year.
And I was struck.
One of the things you said -- well, you said
you have been struck by how she was often
misperceived, underestimated by people.
What did you mean by that?
SUSAN PAGE, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today:
Well, one of the reasons I thought she deserved
a biography is that people had, I think, a
perception of her as a warm grandmother and
a very soft -- the national grandmother with
the white hair and the big pearls.
And that's true that she's a warm grandmother,
but she was also pretty sharp.
She had great political instincts.
She didn't hesitate to express herself and
her opinions to her husband and her sons.
And I think she was influential in the White
House in a way that people perhaps didn't
understand.
It's not that she took over health care, like
Hillary Clinton.
But she was a voice in the ear of her husband
and her son on what mattered, on what to focus
on, and on who to trust.
She could spot a phony a mile away.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Pastor Steinroeder, you met
the Bushes when you were -- you had just begun,
I think, working at the church in Kennebunkport.
And you said -- it was right after 9/11, and
you said Mrs. Bush came over to you, made
a point of coming over to you.
Talk about that, about her.
REV.
BONNIE STEINROEDER, Former Pastor, First Congregational
Church: Well, so, it was a Sunday after 9/11.
I had been scheduled to give my call sermon
at the church, where I would preach.
Everybody would vote on me; 9/11 happened
on that Tuesday, so I ripped up my sermon.
I showed up, my first time in this church.
I was so nervous.
I look out in the pews, and there is the president's
parents, you know, President George Bush,
Barbara Bush.
So, I don't remember what I said.
I just preached the best I could.
And, afterwards, she came up to me and she
hugged me, and she said: "Your words so comforted
me.
I'm so glad you're our new pastor."
And what I realized in that moment, it wasn't
me who had comforted her.
She was comforting me.
And I feel like that set the tone for our
whole relationship.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you have told us that you
went on to have a great friendship with them.
Boyden Gray, I want to come back to you.
There are so many parts of her life that are
really interesting.
I want to go back to what Susan was saying
about Barbara Bush's influence in the White
House on her husband.
How did you see that?
C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, she was on top of everything.
She didn't get involved, as Susan said, in
individual policies, except very, very rarely.
But she knew everything.
She was politically very, very astute.
And if she thought staff wasn't serving her
husband well, or that somebody was cutting
corners, she would let it be known, quietly,
but strongly.
And no one ever messed around when she was
watching.
So, she was an enormous watchdog for him,
and she was an enormous tower of strength.
She never flinched.
She never blinked.
And she always supported him to the fullest.
It was a remarkable partnership that they
had.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Susan, how would you -- what's
an example of that?
And I also want to ask you about -- you talked
to us about the difficult, the painful times
that she went through, and, often, we didn't
have any idea that that was going on.
SUSAN PAGE: You know, it's true.
She is -- came from a very exalted lineage.
She had a direct ancestor who came over on
the Mayflower.
She's a distant cousin to the 14th president,
Franklin Pierce.
And, of course, she had lived a life of privilege
and position.
But she had the grief and pain that people
have in their lives.
She lost a daughter to leukemia.
She had a battle with depression in 1975.
She told me she contemplated suicide at that
time.
She was diagnosed with Graves' disease soon
after becoming first lady.
That was something that caused her great difficulty
up to the -- forever, until the end of her
life, but in ways that she never -- you know,
she never complained.
At least she never complained in public.
She was very -- she was stoic.
And she told me that the struggle with depression,
for instance, gave her...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Which a lot of people weren't
aware of.
SUSAN PAGE: Weren't aware of.
She disclosed it in her memoirs.
People didn't know about it at the time.
Her struggle with depression gave her an empathy
with people who were having trouble, and that
she had previously thought, just work your
way out of it, just power through.
And she came to learn that you really need
sometimes to seek help.
And she said she wished at that point she
had done that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Pastor Steinroeder, you
saw that in her, didn't you?
REV.
BONNIE STEINROEDER: I totally saw that in
her.
When Susan was saying in the beginning that
people kind of misunderstood her, she was
-- yes, she was strong and smart and kind
and funny, and all of those things.
And I received her love.
I also was scolded by her more than one time.
And she just had the biggest heart and was
a very compassionate and generous person.
And I just want to add, you know, a lot of
people will help you if you go and ask.
Barbara Bush never waited to be asked.
She looked around to see where the need was,
and then she stepped into that need to help
other people, which is one thing that for
me made her so unique and special.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Pastor Steinroeder, I want
to stay with you for just a moment, because
one of the things you talked to us about was
how you -- at some point, they invited you
to many events at their home in Kennebunkport,
and often you were the only Democrat there,
or there would be Democrats with Republicans.
How did you observe the partisanship around
them?
REV.
BONNIE STEINROEDER: They were the most non
-- I know it sounds funny to say.
They were the most nonpartisan people I have
ever met.
I mean, they knew that I was a Democrat.
They never brought it up.
They were friends with everybody.
Their events were people like Olympia Snowe,
former senator of Maine, what I took to be
some fund-raisers and my husband and I.
But everyone got along.
And, again, they were just so generous in
spirit.
And, as their pastor, I can say, they took
very seriously their Christian calling to
help their neighbor, to love their neighbor
as themselves.
And their neighbor didn't have red or blue
or man or woman or whatever station you were
in life.
They picked their friends.
They helped people because they were loving
and they cared.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Boyden Gray, I want to you
pick up on that, because those values carried
over to what -- to the Bush presidency, to
their -- not only their four years in the
White House when he was president, but the
time as vice president, their time throughout
their lives in public service.
C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, they were incredibly
generous with their time and their attention.
And they helped everybody in the family, in
their family, everybody who worked with them,
for them, in every way they could.
It was -- the role model that they set was
extraordinary.
And I just hope that we can maintain this,
and using her life as an example and 41's
example.
Extraordinary couple, and -- but, at the same
time, very warm and very loving.
And they -- you know, as a personal matter,
they helped me raise my daughter, and I'm
very grateful for that.
One sort of anecdote.
When my daughter was graduated -- was graduating
from high school, she wrote President Bush
and said, would you come and speak at my graduation?
And he immediately replied yes.
And then Barbara stepped in and said: "No,
George, you can't do that.
You refused to do any of your grandchildren's
graduations, because you will do that for
the rest of your life and do nothing else.
So you can't do it for Eliza."
And -- but that was -- but the thought remained,
and that was what was important.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Susan, on this whole business
of how open they were to both political parties,
and yet there was tension with this president,
wasn't there?
SUSAN PAGE: Yes.
Well, you know, Barbara Bush was a fierce
defender of her family, of -- against any
critics of her husband or of her son, either
son, all of her sons.
But when Donald Trump was so caustic toward
Jeb Bush during the 2016 primaries, I think
she found that very difficult to take, and
she made it clear she didn't like that.
And she expressed concerns to me in interviews
in recent months about the direction of the
party that she's been part of for so long.
And I think one reason we see such a big outpouring
today is, I think other Americans think, are
we headed in the right direction?
Can we revive some of the civility that marked
the Bushes?
JUDY WOODRUFF: And we should note that Mrs.
Trump, Melania Trump, the first lady, is going
to the services.
But it's our understanding that President
Trump is not attending.
Is that correct?
SUSAN PAGE: Well, I know that she's accepted,
and he has not yet.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Has not yet, so we don't know
whether he is or not.
Pastor Steinroeder, you spoke, you touched
on this a minute ago, her strong faith.
That was clearly a huge part of her life,
I mean, from what you were telling us.
REV.
BONNIE STEINROEDER: It was a huge part of
her life and of President Bush's life as well.
And you could see it through everything.
You could see it in their relationship.
You could see it in the motivation that they
felt to help other people, to be good people,
to be kind, to be generous.
We talked about faith quite a bit.
But she was never heavy-handed about her faith,
because she was -- I don't know if people
realize, but my experience of her is, she
was also very private in many ways.
So she was very clear about her faith.
She would help anybody, but she never tried
to force her views or her beliefs on anybody
else.
And I do think that's probably what helped
her at the end of her life to have that sense
of peace, because we had talked a long, long
time ago about her beliefs that she knew she
would be reunited with the people she loved
who had gone before her.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Boyden Gray, you were in touch
with the family.
You -- in the past, you have been very close
to them.
But you have been getting regular reports
in the last few weeks.
How did she approach the end?
C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, the same way she did
life.
As I said earlier, she wanted to go out with
the dignity that she always lived with and
always exhibited.
And she didn't want to be felt sorry for.
She wanted to go out with the kind of grace
that exemplified her life.
And she did it.
And it's a great example.
And it's something that I hope all Americans
look at, because this is the way -- this is
the way to finish off a fabulous, fabulous
life.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And her sons were saying keeping
her humor until the very end.
C. BOYDEN GRAY: The very end.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well...
C. BOYDEN GRAY: Having a bourbon right before
she died.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Literally the day or so before.
C. BOYDEN GRAY: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it is so wonderful to
able to remember such a remarkable woman.
Boyden Gray, Susan Page, Pastor Steinroeder,
thank you all very, very much.
REV.
BONNIE STEINROEDER: Thank you for having me.
