Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush
Bush became First Lady in 1989 after her husband was inaugurated as president. She enjoyed the role and life in the White House, though her experience as first lady was complicated by her protectiveness over her family and her diagnosis of Graves' disease in 1989. She frequently carried out charity work, including her projects to promote literacy and her support for people with AIDS. Among the most prominent of her actions as first lady was the commencement speech she gave at Wellesley College; it saw considerable publicity and her selection was controversial, but it was widely regarded as a success. She remained active in political campaigning after leaving the White House, as two of her sons ran for office in both gubernatorial and presidential campaigns.
Childhood
Pierce grew up in Rye, New York, where she lived in relative comfort with servants assisting the family. She later described herself as a "very happy fat child". While the family lost some of their comforts during the Great Depression, her father's successful career kept them from poverty. In her youth, Pierce was athletic and enjoyed swimming, tennis, and cycling. For the first years of her schooling, Pierce was a public school student, attending Milton School. Insecure about her appearance as a child, she adopted a self-deprecating sense of humor and harshly judged her schoolmates. She also took on more traditionally masculine interests, such as playing football. In her teenage years, she became more popular and was often sought after as a partner in her dance classes. Pierce attended the Rye Country Day School from seventh to tenth grade. She then attended Ashley Hall), a boarding school in Charleston, South Carolina, for eleventh and twelfth grade.
Courtship and marriage
When Pierce was 16 and on Christmas vacation, she met George H. W. Bush. They met at a Christmas dance at the Greenwich Country Club, when he saw her across the room and asked a friend to introduce them. After a dance together, they instead sat and talked because Bush did not know how to waltz. They were immediately infatuated with one another, and they met again, first at a dance the following night, and then when Bush agreed to play a basketball game with her brother—a game that was attended by the entire Pierce family, who all wished to see the object of her affections. They kept a correspondence after Pierce returned to Ashley Hall, and they went on a date during their spring break. He then asked Pierce to accompany him to his senior prom. Bush enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 after he graduated, and they saw each other on visits until the following year, when they were secretly engaged. Despite their original intention of secrecy, their families soon knew of it. Pierce graduated from Ashley Hall in 1943.
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