Barbara Bush Dies: Literacy Champion and Political Matriarch

Barbara Bush died at 92, the matriarch of a political dynasty that produced two presidents and a governor. Her lifelong advocacy for literacy education through the Barbara Bush Foundation reached millions of disadvantaged readers, while she became only the second woman in American history to be both wife and mother of a president. Born Barbara Pierce on June 8, 1925, in New York City, she grew up in the affluent suburb of Rye and met George H. W. Bush at a Christmas dance when she was sixteen. They married in 1945 and had six children, including George W. Bush, the 43rd president, and Jeb Bush, governor of Florida. Her second child, Robin, died of leukemia at age three in 1953, a loss that shaped her character and her commitment to charitable causes for the rest of her life. As First Lady from 1989 to 1993, she made family literacy her signature cause, establishing the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy in 1989, which raised over $110 million for literacy programs across the United States. She was known for her sharp wit, her white hair (she stopped dyeing it after Robin's death), and her willingness to speak bluntly in a political culture that rewarded evasion. She was publicly popular in a way that transcended partisan politics, maintaining approval ratings that consistently exceeded her husband's. Only Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams, shares her distinction of being both a presidential wife and presidential mother. She died on April 17, 2018, in Houston, having chosen to forgo further medical treatment in favor of comfort care.