By Juan A. Lozano – Associated Press – Updated: 1:31 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, 2018
HOUSTON (AP) — Barbara Bush was the “first lady of the greatest generation.”
Addressing former presidents, ambassadors and hundreds of other mourners inside the nation’s largest Episcopal church on Saturday, historian Jon Meacham recalled Barbara Bush’s quick wit that made her so popular. He also spoke of her devotion to her husband of 73 years, former President George H.W. Bush, noting he was the “only boy she ever kissed.”
Meacham recalled her work bringing awareness to AIDS patients and in promoting literacy. He also said the wife of the 41st president and the mother of the 43rd was “candid and comforting, steadfast and straightforward, honest and loving.”
Meacham, who wrote a 2015 biography on George H.W. Bush, joined some 1,500 people on a gray, rainy Saturday to honor Barbara Bush at the private funeral, filling St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston a day after more than 6,000 people paid their respects during a public viewing.
George H.W. Bush was helped into the cavernous sanctuary with a wheelchair behind his sons, former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. He laughed as Meacham and others recalled his wife’s wicked sense of humor.