HOUSTON — Barbara Bush — the former first lady of President George H.W. Bush and mother of President George W. Bush — has died at her home in Houston, a family spokesman confirmed. She was 92.
Her family was summoned to their West Oaks home, near the Houston Galleria, after Mrs. Bush’s health began to deteriorate over the last few days. It’s the house she and her husband built after leaving Washington in 1993.
It was revealed Monday that the former first lady was battling COPD and congestive heart failure. She would have turned 93 on June 8.
Barbara Pierce Bush married George H.W. Bush, who became the the 41st president, on Jan. 6, 1945. Her son, George W. Bush — now a Dallas resident — was the governor of Texas from 1996 to 2000. He resigned to become the country's 43rd president. Another son, Jeb Bush, was the governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He also ran for the White House but lost the nomination to Donald Trump.
Mrs. Bush, who was also a second lady of the United States when George H.W. was vice president from 1981-89, will be buried on the grounds of the George H.W. Bush presidential library in College Station.
Mrs. Bush and the former president chose a site “on the east bank of a creek that runs behind the complex and is hidden among oak trees and protected by an iron fence,” according to The Eagle newspaper in Bryan-College Station. “In May 2000, their daughter, Robin, who died at age 3 from leukemia, was reinterred there from the family plot in Connecticut.”
PHOTOS: Barbara Bush through the years
The elder Bushes celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in January.
"I am still old and still in love with the man I married 72 years ago," Barbara Bush wrote in a magazine for her alma mater, Smith College, that was published this month.
She also revealed her secret for a long life in the publication.
"I have had great medical care and more operations than you would believe. I'm not sure God will recognize me; I have so many new body parts,” she jokingly wrote in the magazine. "Also, George Bush has given me the world. He is the best — thoughtful and loving.”
Barbara and George Bush had six children and 17 grandchildren.
She was born in New York and grew up on the east coast.
“She went to boarding school at Ashley Hall in South Carolina, and it was at a dance during Christmas vacation when she was only 16 that she met George Bush, a senior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. They became engaged a year-and-a-half later, just before he went off to war as a Navy torpedo bomber pilot,” according to the official White House biography.
The former first lady was perhaps best known for her efforts to teach people to read through her Barbara Bush Foundation for Literacy. She continued a life of philanthropy and public service after her time in the White House, serving as the AmeriCares ambassador-at-large, a Mayo Clinic Foundation board member and supporter of several other charitable organizations.
Photos: Wedding of George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush
The statement from the Bush family released Tuesday evening:
“A former First Lady of the United States of America and relentless proponent of family literacy, Barbara Pierce Bush passed away Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at the age of 92. She is survived by her husband of 73 years, George H.W. Bush; five children and their spouses; 17 grandchildren; seven great grandchildren; and her brother, Scott Pierce. She was preceded in death by her second child, Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush, and her siblings Martha Rafferty and James R. Pierce."