“He’s sad, but he’s doing well,” Jenna Bush Hager, said of her grandfather, George HW Bush.
“Last time we talked to him he was eating barbecue,” she continued, giving an update on her grandfather’s condition on the Today Show. He was hospitalized last week for a blood infection, following his wife’s passing.
Geroge H.W. Bush Breaks Down in Tears After Son Jeb Reads Letter From 1994 at Barbara’s Funeral
On April 17, George lost of wife of 73 years, when Barbara Bush passed away.
In 1941, George and Barbara met for the first time. Their love story could easily be a love story; the kind of love story that you read about in novels.
17-year-old George and 16-year-old Barbara met at a dance, but they didn’t do much talking. Instead, the couple sat and talked for hours, amazed at how well they immediately clicked.
“We sat the dance out,” George later said of their first interaction. “And several more after that, talking and getting to know each other. It was a storybook meeting.”
A year and a half later, and a whirlwind of a romance later, the couple was engaged. But it was years before they were married, as George headed overseas as a Navy pilot, fighting in World War II.
He did not forget Barbara while he was overseas, holding their future marriage close to his heart, even naming three of his planes after Barbara.
Four years after their first “dance” the couple was married on January 6, 1945, when George was on leave from the Navy.
“I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up,” Barbara later said of their marriage.
George continued his military service after their marriage, and the couple spent the first couple years of marriage moving from Michigan to Virginia for his Navy squadron training.
In 1946, the couple welcomed their first son, George W, quickly followed by their daughter Robin in 1949, and finally Jeb in 1953.
Their marriage wasn’t without trials, as their daughter Robin was diagnosed with leukemia in 1952. The couple traveled cross-country seeking the best care for their daughter, but the cancer took over, and she died a few weeks shy of her fourth birthday.
The Bush family ultimately moved to Texas in 1950 and settled down there. George started a career in the oil and gas industry and became quite successful at it.
The couple had three more children; Neil in 1955, Dorothy in 1959 and Marvin in 1956.
It wasn’t long before George became interested in politics. The President began his career as Harris County Republican Party chairman in 1963 and ended as President of the United States in 1989.
The family has lived through the highs and lows of being in the political spotlight, and many of their children have become successful politicians and businessmen as well.
After the Bushes exited the White House, they moved back to Texas. They split their time between their home in Texas and their family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
“One of the reasons I made the most important decision of my life to marry George Bush is because he made me laugh,” Barbara said of their relationship. “It’s true, sometimes we’ve laughed through our tears, but that shared laughter has been one of our strongest bonds.”
George and Barbara now have 17 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren as well. Their marriage was the longest in American presidential history, lasting 73 years.
One day after the former first-ladies funeral, Bush was sent to the hospital with a blood infection. He is still at Houston Methodist Hospital but is in “excellent spirits.
Bush is hoping to be able to recover enough to travel up to the families compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, next month with his family.
“He’s doing great,” Jenna said. “He’s goal-oriented, and he wants to get to Maine. We think he’s going to be going there.”
Jenna also thanked the country, on The Today Show, for their condolences and tributes for her grandmother.
“You know what’s so amazing is to hear how beloved she was,” Jenna said. “We loved her, but we drove from Houston to College Station to bury her next to her daughter, and the streets, the highways were packed with people.”
“People holding up their pearls. It was so touching to our family to feel that love.”