McGrath said Bush was concerned more for her family than herself.

"It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself — thanks to her abiding faith — but for others," he said.

President Donald Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement Sunday evening that "the President's and first lady's prayers are with all of the Bush family during this time."

Bush is known for her white hair and her triple-strand fake pearl necklace.

Her brown hair began to grey in the 1950s, while her three-year-old daughter Pauline, known to her family as Robin, underwent treatment for leukemia and eventually died in October 1953. She later said dyed hair didn't look good on her and credited the colour to the public's perception of her as "everybody's grandmother."

Her pearls sparked a national fashion trend when she wore them to her husband's inauguration in 1989. The pearls became synonymous with Bush, who later said she selected them to hide the wrinkles in her neck. The candid admission only bolstered her common sense and down-to-earth public image.

Her 93-year-old husband, the nation's 41st president who served from 1989 to 1993, also has had health issues in recent years. In April 2017, he was hospitalized in Houston for two weeks for a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. He was hospitalized months earlier, also for pneumonia. He has a form of Parkinson's disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.

Before being president, he served as a congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan's vice-president.

Barbara Pierce Bush was born June 8, 1925, in Rye, N.Y. Her father was the publisher of McCall's and Redbook magazines. She and George H.W. Bush married when she was 19 and while he was a young naval aviator. After the Second World War, the Bushes moved to Texas where he went into the oil business.

Along with her memoirs, she's the author of "C. Fred's Story" and "Millie's Book," based on the lives of her dogs. Proceeds from the books benefited adult and family literacy programs. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy began during her White House years with the goal of improving the lives of disadvantaged Americans by boosting literacy among parents and their children. The foundation partners with local programs and had awarded more than $40 million as of 2014 to create or expand more than 1,500 literacy programs nationwide.</s>Spokesman: Former first lady Barbara Bush in failing health

HOUSTON (AP) — Former first lady Barbara Bush is in "failing health" and won't seek additional medical treatment, a Bush family spokesman said Sunday.

"Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs. Bush, now age 92, has decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care," spokesman Jim McGrath said in a news release.

McGrath did not elaborate as to the nature of Bush's health problems. She has been treated for decades for Graves' disease, which is a thyroid condition, had heart surgery in 2009 for a severe narrowing of her main heart valve and was hospitalized a year before that for surgery on a perforated ulcer.

"It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself — thanks to her abiding faith — but for others," McGrath said. "She is surrounded by a family she adores, and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving."

Bush, who is at home in Houston, is one of only two first ladies who was also the mother of a president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, the nation's second president, and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president.

Bush married George H.W. Bush on Jan. 6, 1945. They had six children and have been married longer than any presidential couple in American history.

Eight years after she and her husband left the White House, Mrs. Bush stood with her husband as their son George W. was sworn in as the 43rd president.

President Donald Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement Sunday evening that "the President's and first lady's prayers are with all of the Bush family during this time."

Bush is known for her white hair and her triple-strand fake pearl necklace.

Her brown hair began to gray in the 1950s, while her 3-year-old daughter Pauline, known to her family as Robin, underwent treatment for leukemia and eventually died in October 1953. She later said dyed hair didn't look good on her and credited the color to the public's perception of her as "everybody's grandmother."

Her pearls sparked a national fashion trend when she wore them to her husband's inauguration in 1989. The pearls became synonymous with Bush, who later said she selected them to hide the wrinkles in her neck. The candid admission only bolstered her common sense and down-to-earth public image.

Her 93-year-old husband, the nation's 41st president who served from 1989 to 1993, also has had health issues in recent years. In April 2017, he was hospitalized in Houston for two weeks for a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. He was hospitalized months earlier, also for pneumonia. He has a form of Parkinson's disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.

Before being president, he served as a congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan's vice president.

Barbara Pierce Bush was born June 8, 1925, in Rye, New York. Her father was the publisher of McCall's and Redbook magazines. She and George H.W. Bush married when she was 19 and while he was a young naval aviator. After World War II, the Bushes moved to Texas where he went into the oil business.

Along with her memoirs, she's the author of "C. Fred's Story" and "Millie's Book," based on the lives of her dogs. Proceeds from the books benefited adult and family literacy programs. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy began during her White House years with the goal of improving the lives of disadvantaged Americans by boosting literacy among parents and their children. The foundation partners with local programs and had awarded more than $40 million as of 2014 to create or expand more than 1,500 literacy programs nationwide.

This story has been corrected to show George H.W. Bush is 93, not 94.</s>Former US President George H.W. Bush tosses the coin for the Super Bowl as former first lady Barbara Bush looks on in Houston, Texas on February 5, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

On Sunday, news broke that former first lady Barbara Bush is in "failing health" and is now focusing on comfort care at home.

The 92-year-old is battling Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and congestive heart failure, and has been hospitalized several times over the last year.

Bush, who resided in the White House for four years while her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, served as Commander in Chief, has been married to the 41st president of the United States for 73 years.

Described as a true love story, here is an inside look at the longest marriage in US presidential history:</s>Jenna Bush Hager gave a touching tribute to her grandmother Barbara Bush on Monday – a day after the family revealed the former First Lady is in failing health and has declined further medical treatment.

Bush Hager, a correspondent for NBC’s show, told viewers that she spoke to her 92-year-old grandmother on Sunday night after the announcement about her health.

“We are grateful for her. She is the best grandma anybody could of ever had or have,” Bush Hager said. “Barbara and I talked to her last night, she’s in great spirits and she’s a fighter, she’s an enforcer. She reminded me not to believe everything you read.”

Bush Hager, the daughter of former President George W. Bush, has a twin sister Barbara, who is named after their grandmother.

“We’re grateful for her, for everybody’s prayers and thoughts and just know the world is better because she’s in it,” Bush Hager said.

The former First Lady announced through a family spokesperson Sunday that she is now focusing on “comfort care” and not seeking further medical treatment to extend her life.

On the show, Hager highlighted her grandmother’s close relationship with former President George H.W. Bush, expressing admiration for their loving relationship after more than seven decades of marriage.

“She’s with my grandpa, the man she’s loved for over 73 years,” said Hager. “They are surrounded by family, but I think the fact that they’re together in this and he still says, ‘I love you Barbie,’ every night is pretty remarkable.”</s>DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – When Robert Caltabiano began on the U.S. Secret Service detail for former President George H.W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush, he says his first day was memorable.

It was in 1997, five years after the First Couple left the White House, and he says Mrs. Bush had trouble pronouncing his last name.

“It was quite comical, and she just decided to say ok, this is Bobby. And that’s what I was called, just Bobby.”

He says the former President and First Lady would take photos of all their Secret Service agents so they could quickly learn their names.

Like so many others, Caltabiano says he is now praying for Mrs. Bush and her family after their spokesman announced the 92 year old Bush Matriarch is now home receiving comfort care.

She is suffering from congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD, a lung disease that causes long-term coughing and can make it difficult to breathe.

Caltabiano, who was the Special Agent In Charge of Lady Bird Johnson’s protective detail, and was Acting Special Agent In Charge of the Dallas Field Office when he retired, says it is true what so many other people say about Mrs. Bush: She is like everyone’s mom. “We were there to protect her but she was in many ways protecting us. Just by the calmness of who she is.”

He says he’ll never forget the conversation he had with Mrs. Bush when he helped her learn about all the controls on her new car.

 They were in a parking lot at the Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University, and Caltabiano says he told her, “This is a beautiful car, I’d like to have a car like this, and I need a new car. And she turns around and says ok, no Bobby, this car is expensive. You have a young child at home and you need to save your money, you need to buy a different type of car than this. That will always stand out with me.”

That motherly advice came in handy Caltabiano says when he was with the former First Lady in China.

He says she was shopping for pearls. “I wanted to buy my mother a set of pearls, so Mrs. Bush picked out a pair that was at a good price because she didn’t want me to spend a lot of money, and so she helped me buy a set of pearls for my mom, who still has them to this day.”

He last saw Mrs. Bush five years ago in Tyler, and she made a request.

“Hey Bobby, come here, let’s take a picture and so Neil her son was with her, he went and took a picture of us. I wish I would have gotten the photo. I never got the photo back. That was special to me because she asked me to take a picture with her and I have her a big hug.”</s>(Reuters) - Former U.S. first lady Barbara Bush, the only woman to see her husband and son both sworn in as president, died on Tuesday, the Bush family said. She was 92.

Bush was the wife of the 41st president, George H.W. Bush, and mother of the 43rd, George W. Bush.

The Bush family had said in a statement on Sunday that she was in failing health, had decided not to seek further medical treatment and instead would focus on “comfort care.”

According to some media reports, Bush had been battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart problems in recent years.

“Barbara Bush was a fabulous First Lady and a woman unlike any other who brought levity, love and literacy to millions,” George W. Bush said in a statement. “To us, she was so much more. Mom kept us on our toes and kept us laughing until the end.”

Dubbed “The Silver Fox” by her husband and children, Bush was known for her snow-white hair and for being fiercely protective of her family.

She was first lady when her husband was in the White House from 1989 to 1993. Her son, Republican George Walker Bush, triumphed in the disputed 2000 U.S. election and was president from 2001 to 2009. The father-and-son presidents were sometimes referred to as “Bush 41” and “Bush 43.”

The Bushes celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in January.

Bush had an independent streak and could be sharp-tongued. As first lady, she promoted literacy and reading but said she was more interested in running a household than helping her husband run the country.

She discouraged speculation that she wielded political influence with the president like her predecessors - Ronald Reagan’s wife, Nancy Reagan, and Jimmy Carter’s wife, Rosalynn Carter.

“I don’t fool around with his office and he doesn’t fool around with my household,” she once said.

“She’ll speak her mind but only to him,” said Jack Steel, a longtime Bush aide.

‘HUMILITY AND DECENCY’

President Donald Trump and former Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were among those praising the late first lady.

“She will be long remembered for her strong devotion to country and family, both of which she served unfailingly well,” Trump and his wife, Melania, said in a statement that noted Bush’s championing of literacy “as a fundamental family value.”

Clinton, who defeated her husband in the 1992 presidential election, called Bush “fierce and feisty in support of her family and friends, her country and her causes. She showed us what an honest, vibrant, full life looks like.”

Obama and his wife, Michelle, said in a statement that Barbara Bush was “an example of the humility and decency that reflects the very best of the American spirit.”

FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. first lady Barbara Bush listens to her son, President George W. Bush, as he speaks at an event on social security reform in Orlando, Florida, March 18, 2005. REUTERS/Jason Reed JIR/HB

The only other woman to be both wife and mother of U.S. presidents was Abigail Adams, the first lady from 1797 to 1801. She was a major influence on husband John Adams, the nation’s second president, but died before son John Quincy Adams was elected president in 1824.

Another of Bush’s sons, Jeb, who served as governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007, sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and she campaigned for him before he dropped out of the race.

The Bushes had six children. A daughter, Robin, died of leukemia in 1953 at age 3. Barbara Bush’s hair began to turn prematurely white after the shock of the girl’s death. In addition to George W. and Jeb, the other Bush children were sons Neil and Marvin and daughter Dorothy.

The Bushes married on Jan. 6, 1945, and Barbara set up households in numerous cities as her husband moved from being a Texas oilman to being a member of Congress, Republican Party leader, U.S. envoy to China and the United Nations and head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

‘RHYMES WITH RICH’

Barbara Bush sometimes made biting remarks, particularly when she felt the need to defend her husband. One notable example came in 1984 when George H.W. Bush was seeking re-election as vice president under Reagan, a post he held from 1981 until becoming president in 1989.

She told reporters that Geraldine Ferraro, her husband’s Democratic rival for the vice presidency, was a “4 million dollar ... I can’t say it but it rhymes with ‘rich.’” She apologized to Ferraro, the first woman running for U.S. vice president on a major-party ticket.

Texas Governor Ann Richards mocked her husband at the 1988 Democratic convention - saying: “Poor George ... was born with a silver foot in his mouth” - and Barbara henceforth referred to Richards as “that woman.”

In 2012, Bush dismissed the political ambitions of U.S. conservative darling Sarah Palin, saying: “I think she’s very happy in Alaska - and I hope she’ll stay there.”

Bush generally refused to discuss publicly her personal views on controversial topics such as abortion, an issue on which she was believed to differ from her husband’s more conservative stance.

But during her husband’s 1992 re-election race, she told reporters that abortion and homosexuality were “personal things” that should be left out of political conventions and party platforms. “I don’t think that’s healthy for the country when anyone thinks their morals are better than anyone else’s,” she said.

Opinion polls often showed her popularity as first lady exceeding her husband’s as president. “I don’t threaten anyone,” she said. “That’s because I’m everyone’s grandma.”

PUBLISHER’S DAUGHTER

A year younger than her husband, she was born Barbara Pierce on June 8, 1925, and grew up in Rye, New York. Her father was Marvin Pierce, publisher of McCall’s magazine.

She was home from boarding school in 1941 when she met her future husband at a Christmas party in Connecticut. She dropped out of prestigious Smith College to marry Bush, then a young naval aviator home on leave from World War Two.

George Bush said marrying Barbara, whom he called “Bar,” was “the thing I did right.” But the marriage nearly did not take place. While they were engaged, his bomber was shot down by the Japanese in the Pacific in 1944. He bailed out and was rescued in the ocean by a submarine crew, but his crewmates died.

“When you’re 18, you think everybody is invincible. ... I mean, that was stupid - but I knew he was going to come home. He was Superman,” she told CNN in 2003.

Slideshow (9 Images)

After leaving the White House, she found time to write her memoirs. In 1990, she authored “Millie’s Book,” a humorous look at the adventures of the family’s English springer spaniel in the White House.

In one of their last public appearances, the Bushes attended the 2017 Super Bowl in Houston, with George performing the ceremonial pregame coin flip. Only a few days before, the couple had been released from a hospital where George had been treated for pneumonia and Barbara for bronchitis.</s>At Molina's Cantina on Westheimer, Barbara Bush's image is not only hanging on the wall, but weighing heavily on the minds of workers.The Bushes were among many Houstonians who have visited the restaurant over the years, but server Leo Mendoza said he will never forget the face of the former first lady."She was always smiling," Mendoza said. "She would ask me for everything. She was a nice lady."Her bright smile impressed so many people who met her, not the high and mighty, but regular folks.A photo hangs at the restaurant of the last time the Bushes came to Molina's to dine on their favorite cheese enchiladas. Manager Maria Sanchez took the image."I took a picture of Mrs. Bush and Mr. Bush surrounded by children, and that's one of the memories I have here, and it's in our main dining room," Sanchez said.The former first couple was glad to do it. Mrs. Bush loved to be around children.Mrs. Bush would read Christmas stories to an audience of kids during the holiday season with J.J. Watt. Literacy has been a cause for her.She founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for family literacy, just one of the ways she gave back, influencing others like Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, who knows her as a friend."The type of person who'd light up a room, treated everybody the same, whether it was the person serving or the biggest person in the room," McIngvale said. "She was a force for good in our community and for years has been a shining example for us to try to emulate."A gracious, giving person who has made an impression on so many outside of the halls of power, to a restaurant where she and her husband posed for pictures, shook hands, and made people feel very special."And sit in our dining room with everybody else, just very humbling. An amazing lady."</s>HOUSTON — Former first lady Barbara Bush is in “failing health” and won’t seek additional medical treatment, a Bush family spokesman said Sunday.

“Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs. Bush, now age 92, has decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care,” spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement.

McGrath did not elaborate as to the nature of Bush’s health problems. She has been treated for decades for Graves’ disease, which is a thyroid condition, had heart surgery in 2009 for a severe narrowing of her main heart valve and was hospitalized a year before that for surgery on a perforated ulcer.

“It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself – thanks to her abiding faith – but for others,” McGrath said. “She is surrounded by a family she adores, and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving.”

Bush is one of only two first ladies who was also the mother of a president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.

She married George H.W. Bush in 1945. They had six children and have been married longer than any presidential couple in American history.

Eight years after she and her husband left the White House, Mrs. Bush stood with her husband as their son, George W., was sworn in as president.

President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement Sunday evening that “the President’s and first lady’s prayers are with all of the Bush family during this time.”

She’s known for her white hair and her triple-strand fake pearl necklace.

Her brown hair began to gray in the 1950s, while her 3-year-old daughter Pauline, known to her family as Robin, underwent treatment for leukemia and eventually died in October 1953. She later said dyed hair didn’t look good on her and credited the color to the public’s perception of her as “everybody’s grandmother.”

Her pearls sparked a national fashion trend when she wore them to her husband’s inauguration in 1989. The pearls became synonymous with Bush, who later said she selected them to hide the wrinkles in her neck. The candid admission only bolstered her common-sense and down-to-earth public image.

Her husband, 94, also has had health issues in recent years.

In April 2017, he was released from a hospital in Houston after being treated for two weeks for a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. Months earlier, he was at Houston’s Methodist Hospital for 16 days, also for pneumonia.

The nation’s 41st president also was hospitalized in 2015 in Maine, where he and his wife spend summers at their home in Kennebunkport, after falling at home and breaking a bone in his neck. He was hospitalized in Houston in December 2014 for about a week for shortness of breath and spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues.

Bush, who served as president from 1989 to 1993, has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility. He also served as a congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan’s vice president.

Barbara Pierce Bush was born in Rye, New York. Her father was the publisher of McCall’s and Redbook magazines. She married at age 19 while George Bush was a young naval aviator. After World War II, the Bushes moved to Texas where he went into the oil business.

Along with her memoirs, she’s the author of “C. Fred’s Story” and “Millie’s Book,” based on the lives of her dogs. Proceeds from the books benefited adult and family literacy programs. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy began during her White House years with the goal of improving the lives of disadvantaged Americans by boosting literacy among parents and their children. The foundation partners with local programs and had awarded more than $40 million to create or expand more than 1,500 literacy programs nationwide.</s>Hearing reports that 92-year-old former first lady Barbara Bush was near death wasn’t a good way for anybody to wake up on Sunday morning, as the loss of life, almost no matter who it happens to, is typically very sad. Bush has reportedly decided to stop seeking medical treatment for what’s widely been described as her “failing health.”

The pain associated with losing a loved one, especially a person who has lived more than nine decades, can have a devastating effect on any set of family, friends and fans. But similarly, the pain experienced by Black people in the wake of several instances of Bush’s tone-deaf commentary when it comes to race can also be tough to reconcile.

We’re not saying the wife of the 41st president was a racist; she just had apparent racist tendencies that showed she was clearly left much to be desired when it came to the sway she discussed racism in America.

Bush showcased her apparent indifference to the plight of Black women’s quest for legitimacy in the eyes of White America came when she expressed doubt, to put it mildly, over claims that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed Anita Hill. She appeared to victim-shame Hill while defending the man who her husband nominated to succeed Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Is this woman telling the truth?” Bush asked in her 1994 autobiography. “I do not mean to sit in judgment, but I will never believe that she, a Yale Law School graduate, a woman of the 80s, would put up with harassment for one moment, much less follow the harasser from job to job, call him when she came back to town and later invite him to speak to her students at Oral Roberts University.” She would go on to call Thomas “a good man” whose reputation had been wrongfully “smeared.”

She also wondered in “Barbara Bush: A Memoir” if a speech from Pat Buchanan, who ran against George H.W. Bush for the 1992 Republican presidential nomination, was “racist” or just “racial.” Considering Buchanan ran an “America first” campaign that was nearly identical to that of Donald Trump, it’s unclear how Bush could be confused about the nature of Buchanan’s words.

That apparent White sympathy seemed to also be on display in 2014, when she endorsed the campaign to re-elect Maine Gov. Paul Le Page. Bush supported him by appearing in a campaign ad two years before he called people of color “the enemy right now.”

Using a military analogy to justify his feelings of wanting to shoot drug offenders, Le Page said “the enemy right now… are people of color or people of Hispanic origin.” He continued: “When you go to war… and the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, then you shoot at red.” That comment came one year before he said “The NAACP should apologize to the white people, to the people from the North for fighting their battle.”

While it’s totally conceivable that Bush didn’t know that Le Page resented Black people, it’s doubtful.

But perhaps Bush’s greatest, or at least most infamous, racial faux pas came in the days following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The deadly natural disaster affected millions of people, most of whom were Black. That fact was not lost on her when she told the media that how grateful the “underprivileged” Katrina victims should be for being displaced to Houston, where Bush has called home since leaving the White House in 1992.

“And so many of the people in the [Houston Astrodome] here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them,” Bush said. As if they would prefer to live in an arena-turned-homeless shelter instead of their own homes.

Black people are the most forgiving people in the history of humanity, so we will probably mourn Bush’s death with respect even though there is absolutely no excuse for the racism or discrimination she selectively paid attention to during her life. Lest we forget that she was still born into a world of exclusive White privilege nearly a century ago, even if it was in liberal New York City. To say that she was far removed from having any semblance of sympathy, empathy, or even any comprehensive understanding for and of the plight of Black people in America is a vast understatement.

She may have ultimately made strides in that department, notably by having a Black press secretary and recently by insisting then-candidate Donald Trump was a racist and a sexist, but her commentary when it came to race was routinely uninformed and misguided at best. But, hey, as time has shown over and over, the undefeated combination of wealth and Whiteness will do that, now won’t it?

Barbara Bush To GOP: ‘Compromise Is Not A Dirty Word’

An Infographic Of Hurricane Katrina By The Numbers</s>Fighting back tears, Jenna Bush Hager gave the public an update on her beloved grandmother, former first lady Barbara Bush.

On Sunday, it was announced that her 92-year-old grandmother has decided to decline further medical treatment after consulting her family and doctors and will focus on "comfort care" instead.

"It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself—thanks to her abiding faith—but for others," a statement read. "She is surrounded by a family she adores, and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving."

Hager echoed much of that sentiment on Monday morning when she appeared on Today to address the news. "We are grateful for her. She's the best grandma anyone could have ever had—or have," she corrected herself, her eyes watering.
Former U.S. First Lady Barbara Bush dies at age 92.