Barbara Bush: 10 things you probably didn’t know about ‘America’s first grandmother’
Wife of one US president and mother to another, Barbara Bush was admired by many in the US for her sharp tongue and fiery spirit. Here are 10 fun facts about the woman known as ‘America’s first grandmother’
The wife of America’s 41st president and mother to its 43rd, Barbara Bush has been among the nation’s most prominent and respected women for decades. Here are 10 fun facts about her long life at the top of America’s political system.
1. She met her husband, George H.W. Bush, at a dance when she was just 16. He was then a 17-year-old senior at Phillips Academy prep school in Andover, Massachusetts.
2. Formerly Barbara Pierce, she was a distant relative of the country’s 14th president, Franklin Pierce.
3. While her husband was ambassador to China, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his family visited the Bushes for Thanksgiving lunch. Barbara Bush wrote in her memoir that she could tell during the visit they were being spied on by Chinese authorities.
3. In an interview with Larry King in 2010, two years after Sarah Palin was Republican John McCain’s running mate in the election for US president, she said of the former Alaska governor: “I sat next to her once, thought she was beautiful. And I think she’s very happy in Alaska. And I hope she’ll stay there.”
4. In 1970, a year after former US President Lyndon B. Johnson left the White House, Bush hosted a wedding luncheon for the daughter of one of his close friends. Although she said LBJ “could not have been a better guest”, Bush added in her memoir that her daughter and a friend “were in deep shock” when Johnson snagged the newspaper from the family’s front yard as he left.