On Saturday Barbara and George Bush will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. Their years as a couple have spanned a major period of American and world history, and Bush himself has often been a key participant. Yet they have made sure that the turmoil and the pressures stopped at the threshold of their home.
Over the years the Bushes have shared the same outlook on family life and their religious faith. Their relationship illustrates the axiom that love is not just looking into one another`s eyes but looking in the same direction.
Sitting in the Oval Office reminiscing, President Bush described his first meeting with Barbara Pierce, 48 years ago.
”I first met her at Christmastime, just after Pearl Harbor was attacked. The United States was at war, so I guess you might call ours a wartime romance. To me, to this very day, it has been a classic love story.”
Seventeen-year-old Bush was at a Christmas dance at the Greenwich Country Club in Greenwich, Conn., where he grew up. (His father, Prescott, was a U.S. senator from Connecticut from 1952 to 1962.)
When he first saw 16-year-old Barbara he summoned the courage to ask a mutual friend for an introduction. ”She was wearing a red and green dress, all Christmasy, and she was beautiful,” the president recounted. ”That and her friendly smile were what first attracted me.”
He asked her for the next dance. But when the band began to play a waltz, he told her he didn`t know how to waltz, so they sat out that dance and began to talk. They chatted through the next three dances. ”We found we had a lot in common, even our senses of humor,” he recalls. ”I wanted to see her again.”
He did see her again-”a night or two later”-at another Christmas dance, this one in nearby Rye, N.Y., Barbara`s hometown. ”We both went back to school, but during spring vacation we saw each other quite a bit,” Bush says. ”Then I took her to my senior prom at Andover.” (The president graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., on June 4, 1942, and eight days later, on his 18th birthday, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a seaman second class.)
Barbara Bush recalls that George was not only extremely handsome but also very pleasant. ”It wasn`t love at first sight,” she adds, ”but we enjoyed each other`s company from the start.”
Her younger brother Scott Pierce says that if it wasn`t love at first sight, it was close, ”perhaps love at second sight.”
He remembers the first time he saw Bush. ”It was soon after he met my sister,” Pierce relates. ”She insisted the family attend a basketball game between the local team and the visiting all-stars. It wasn`t until we got to the YMCA that we realized the reason for her insistence: George Bush was playing. I was 11 years old and my first impression was that her boyfriend wasn`t too good a player.
”I think Barbara knew this was more than a crush, because it was the first time she had given notice to the family that here was a guy she really liked.”
Even though she had had other boyfriends, Barbara says that George was the first boy she ever kissed. Bush`s mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, believes her son ”never had any sweethearts before Barbara.” His older brother Prescott says that if Bush did, they were ”not serious ones.”
With Barbara Pierce, however, the romance turned serious less than one year after they met. And in August, 1943, while she was visiting the Bush family in Kennebunkport, Me., she and George became engaged.
She soon endeared herself to the Bush-Walker family with her spunky personality and lack of pretense.
”I still recall when George first told us he had met the niftiest girl,” the president`s mother said. ”Barbara was outgoing and lots of fun.” Dorothy Bush, now 88 years old, remembers her as a wholesome teenager with a cheerful disposition. ”As the family got to know her, we grew to love her,” she says. ”Over the years Barbara has been like a daughter to me.”
Mrs. Bush adds that even though Barbara and George were ”quite young”
when they wanted to get married (three years after they met), she and George`s father thought they were ”sensible people” who were ”well suited” for each other.
Nonetheless, Barbara Bush believes that if it had not been for the war neither her family nor George`s ”would have considered” their marrying so young. ”The timing of our wedding,” she says, ”was set off by the war.”
Scott Pierce adds, ”My dad loved George and, early on, recognized greatness in him. So my parents supported the marriage, even though, ideally, they would`ve preferred that both finish college first.” (Barbara Pierce left Smith College in her sophomore year to marry Bush. He later graduated from Yale in 1948.)
Permission for George to wed
Bush had earned his wings in June 1943, becoming the youngest pilot commissioned by the Navy. In September 1944, his plane, with the name
”Barbara” painted on it, was shot down in the Pacific, but he was rescued, and by Christmas Eve was home on leave. Five days later he served as best man at the wedding of his brother Prescott to Elizabeth (Beth) Kauffman. ”George brought Barbara to our wedding,” Beth Bush recalls. ”She was lovely looking, with big eyes that seemed to grow larger whenever she looked at George. . . . It was as if she couldn`t believe he was home after all the dangers he had been through.”
A week later, on Jan. 6, 1945, Prescott was best man as George and Barbara were married in her family church in Rye.
”At her wedding Barbara looked radiant and was full of enthusiasm about their future together,” Prescott recalls. ”And today, while I`m proud of what George has accomplished, in speaking of his success I always include Barbara, because she had a tremendous amount to do with my brother`s achievements.”
At that time (1945) a man under 21 years old had to have parental consent to marry; a woman over 18 did not. Beth Bush remembers that 19 1/2-year-old Barbara was ”really tickled” that her 20 1/2-year-old fiance-a war hero with a Distinguished Flying Cross-needed his parents` permission to marry and she did not.
Jim Pierce, Barbara`s older brother, missed the wedding because he was in the Navy. But he likes to feel that somehow he shared in the spirit of the occasion. ”My mother and I were co-owners of war bonds,” he says, ”and she cashed them in to help pay for Barbara`s wedding.”
The bride and groom honeymooned at The Cloister in Sea Island, Ga. The resort recently hosted a party for its 32,000th honeymoon couple. From the White House Barbara Bush wrote the social director that she and the president couldn`t attend the event but were ”pleased and amused to learn we were couple 1,768.”
`We don`t have spats`
Barbara Bush believes that one of the reasons her marriage to George has worked so well is that she is ”not possessive” of him. ”Sharing our lives has been most important,” she says. ”George is thoughtful and has been good about including me in almost everything he does, and that makes all the difference.”
She relates that when something irritates them, they are direct with each other. ”You know, we don`t have spats. Isn`t that awful?” she asks in mock disbelief. ”I can`t recall having a real fight with him.” The president says, ”We seldom argue, and when we do it`s over in a hurry.”
How does their love manifest itself? ”In lots of personal ways and quietly,” the president tells me. ”There is no need for us to shore each other up-we have a confident relationship. We kid each other, we worry about the children and grandchildren, we care about the dog; we`re happy just doing things we like, together.”
He describes their special affection for Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, its serenity and scenic beauty. ”Being there together,” he says, ”even if we`re doing different things . . . just sharing our lives; that makes for a happy marriage, and that`s what our love is all about.”
Last Jan. 6, during preparations for Bush`s inauguration (as 41st president), he and Barbara were packing for the move to the White House. In all the excitement the president-elect was able to surprise her on their anniversary ”by quietly inviting people on one day`s notice” for dinner and theater.
Nighttime chats
Will their 45th anniversary, their first in the White House, be extra special?
”We aren`t sentimental,” the president discloses, ”and our love is a personal thing. But, yes, there is a certain special quality to this milestone. And since you`re writing this feature, I`ve made an exception here to tell you what Barbara has meant to me. She has truly meant everything.”
In the White House, their 29th home in 45 years, Barbara Bush has her own identity, her own interests, in which her husband takes pride. ”You know, I`m president of the United States,” he muses, ”and Barbara is first lady. She may travel on behalf of literacy, the homeless, education or volunteerism. At night, like any other couple, we talk about what went on during the day and evening. We discuss family matters, the issues, other happenings, even State dinners.
”Besides her own activities, she saves time for family. That closeness will continue no matter what we`re doing or where we live.”
No interference from Barbara
President Bush acknowledges that he has had disappointments in life, in politics, even in the Oval Office, ”but none that have shaken our marriage.” In 1964 and 1970 he lost bids for a U.S. Senate seat from Texas. In mid-1988 polls showed he might lose the presidential election.
”He just worked harder,” Barbara Bush says. ”He has grace under pressure and is easy to live with because of his even-keeled disposition.”
The president says that, like his mother, his wife is a generous and caring woman who doesn`t look for credit. ”She has given me 45 years of real happiness,” he says. ”She has been part of everything I do, but she doesn`t try to fine-tune my administration or get into the day-to-day business of the presidency.”
I asked him if he would have run for the presidency against Barbara`s wishes.
”Probably not, if she felt really strongly about it,” the president tells me. ”But I think those things are mutually decided upon. If she would have said emphatically to me, `I do not want you to run,` then I would agree that I wouldn`t run. But in our case that would not happen.”
A 30-year friend of the couple, Secretary of Commerce Robert A. Mosbacher, notes that their marriage is the kind everyone strives for and not many ever achieve.
”They have a special relationship that few couples enjoy,” he says.
”It`s rare and beautiful. They`re completely comfortable with one another. And because they are caring people, that attitude of caring extends itself to their friends.”
One real sadness
Has living in the White House changed Barbara and George Bush?
The president`s cousin (Judge) John M. Walker Jr., responds:
”They take their responsibilities seriously but are not impressed with themselves. When they entertain guests-whether family or ambassadors or officials from foreign countries-they do so in their private quarters as well as in the formal rooms of the White House. This informality puts everyone at ease.
”Long before they moved to the White House, I had seen them show concern for each person they met. It`s the same today, whether it`s a head of state or a stranger taking a White House tour.”
Barbara Bush`s older brother Jim Pierce says, ”The White House, with its ceremony and trappings, is heady, but my sister and brother-in-law do a good job keeping things in perspective. Their naturalness as a couple is still impressive. In a materialistic world, that stands out.”
Janice Pierce, wife of Barbara`s younger brother Scott, notes: ”Their family has been the center of their lives. Since they`ve been married Barbara`s priorities have remained the same: her husband, her children, her children`s children and volunteerism.”
The Bushes` five children have given them 11 grandchildren. Over the years, while George and Barbara had different roles in child rearing, they agreed on how their children should be brought up.
”If one of our kids needed special care or had to be dusted off and put back in the game,” the president recalls, ”we both sensed it at the same time. If one of them hurt, Barbara and I hurt, too, in the same way.”
Their one real sadness was the death of their first daughter, Robin, of leukemia in 1953, before she was 4 years old.
Mrs. Bush says that she and George will always cherish their memories of Robin. ”I don`t think about her with sadness anymore. I think about her with affection,” she says. ”I used to dwell on that, sort of morbidly, especially when her birthday (Dec. 20) approached, or on Oct. 11, the anniversary of the day she died.”
The president says, ”We were heartbroken. We tried to find comfort in God and to accept and learn from our sorrow. You know, the death of a child can be a familymaker or breaker. As we shared our loss, Barbara and I grew stronger.”
`Wouldn`t change a thing`
If he could have the last 45 years to live over, the president says he wouldn`t do anything differently, ”except I wish the child we lost could have stayed with us. But in terms of the rest of our lives, I wouldn`t want to change a thing. We`ve been blessed.”
The president`s older brother Prescott maintains that George and Barbara have always seen the bright side of life.
Looking back, the president`s mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, reflects: ”I watched George and Barbara mature together and always felt she was the right person for him. When I met her 48 years ago I felt they`d be perfect for each other. I feel the same way today.
”I only hope all George`s presidential decisions are as wise as the decision he made 45 years ago when he chose Barbara as his wife.”
