Fit for a Queen
Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that. But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. And so today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity—shared, and written, together.
It was Saturday morning, January 21, 1989, and as Dorothy Walker Bush lay in bed reading those words, quick tears came to her eyes. It was such an eloquent declaration of American idealism and just one of the many powerful statements made by her son President George H. W. Bush yesterday during his inaugural address to the nation. How proud she had been as she watched him being sworn in as the forty-first President of the United States of America. Now, as she read and reread the transcript of his speech, which she’d asked to be delivered to her room last night while everyone was at the inaugural balls, her heart was still full.
Dorothy hadn’t slept a wink, which was not unusual for her. A chronic insomniac, she would sometimes quip, “I slept once in the 1950s and was sorry to lose the hours.” She was only half joking. In her younger years, she had always been busy with a life so full, the idea of falling into a black hole of unconsciousness seemed like an enormous waste of time. However, she was eighty-seven now, and her world had shrunk so much that she had few, if any, responsibilities. Every day was a challenge as she coped with arthritis, a heart condition, high blood pressure, and other physical maladies. She hated no longer being the live wire she’d been in her youth.
Leaving the house was such an ordeal these days, especially now that she was in a wheelchair. However, she wouldn’t miss her son’s inauguration. There had been no shortage of drama, though, in getting her from her winter home in Florida to Washington, D.C. Her daughter-in-law Barbara Bush arranged for a private medical airplane transport, meaning a jet fully equipped with every lifesaving tool imaginable, to transport her. Her own doctor and a nurse flew at her side, as well as the air ambulance service’s experienced medical team. While she didn’t believe these precautions were necessary, others disagreed. After all, how much of a damper would it have put on things if the President-elect’s mother suddenly passed away in the air on her way to his inauguration?
As she looked around, Dorothy had to have been awed by her surroundings. After all, she was in the Queens’ Bedroom in the White House. Again, it was Barbara who’d decided that she, as the family’s matriarch, should sleep here.
The stately Queens’ Bedroom on the second floor of the White House was named in honor of the many royal guests who’d slept in it over the years—queens of Norway, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Greece, among others. In years to come, whenever Assistant Chief White House Usher Chris Emery would give a tour of the White House to guests of the Bushes during parties they’d host, he would always allow Barbara to take over when they got to this special room. She knew the history of all the queens who’d stayed here and would always enjoy regaling her guests with those stories.
The room was elegantly decorated in the Federal style with rose-colored walls and had two north-facing floor-to-ceiling windows, each framed by heavy Scalamandré drapes. But it was the nearly eight-foot-by-six-foot Sheraton four-poster bed with its rosewood headboard and floral pink-and-green canopy that most distinguished it. Donated around 1902, this bed was first used in the Lincoln Bedroom, which was right across the hall; it had supposedly once belonged to Andrew Jackson. “Fit for a queen,” Barbara had said of the accommodations, “and very appropriate that Ganny [the family’s loving appellation for Dorothy] should sleep there.”
Dorothy might have had a restful night in such an august room had it not been for two nuisances: the doctor and nurse sitting on two straight-back chairs to the right of her, all night long.
“Ganny, look. Look!” an excited Barbara Bush said as she burst into the room. She was with Dorothy’s great-granddaughter, seven-year-old Jenna, one of the twins belonging to George W. and Laura. “Outside,” Barbara exclaimed. “You won’t believe your eyes.”
The physician jumped to his feet and helped Dorothy to hers, after which the nurse draped her in a long robe. The two then slowly walked her to one of the windows. It seemed to take forever. Below, thirty thousand people had gathered outside the North Portico to pay their respects to the new President and First Lady. Dorothy stood transfixed as the throng—now delighted to catch a glimpse of the President’s mother—waved at her while applauding and shouting out good wishes. It was breathtaking, a virtual mob of smiling faces as far as the eye could see. “My God, Bar. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dorothy exclaimed.
As Dorothy waved back at the multitude, Barbara rested her hands on her mother-in-law’s slight shoulders. Suddenly, much to their surprise, the crowd started singing Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” Dorothy and Barbara, along with the doctor and nurse, all stood at full attention, swept away by such a stunning display of patriotism. Dorothy fumbled for her handkerchief to blot the corners of her eyes. Even little Jenna seemed enchanted.
“I guess this is our life now,” Dorothy said as the crowd finished its song. She then turned to face her daughter-in-law. “For sure, we’ll be remembered now, won’t we, Bar?” she asked, her eyes damp.
Barbara smiled at her. “Yes, Ganny,” she said. “For sure, we’ll be remembered now.”
A Woman of Substance
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER, MARCH 1953
As Dorothy Bush sat down at her classic Queen Anne desk, circa 1770—a birthday gift from her husband, Senator Prescott Bush—she told her longtime Irish maid, Lucy Larkin, that she didn’t want to be disturbed for at least an hour. Before her was a green Underwood Leader typewriter, another present from the man who she once noted, tongue-in-cheek, “showers me with so many gifts you have to wonder about his conscience.” All around her were books about American history, biographies of Presidents, and photographic volumes illustrating many of the states of the union. She’d never been much of a student of history, that is until she started dating Prescott in 1919, two years before they wed. He had spoken so intelligently about the Constitution during one of their early dinners, she knew she’d have her work cut out for her if she wanted to be able to converse with him at his level. A competitive woman, she started reading history books just so that he wouldn’t always be the more knowledgeable of the two.
Dorothy’s study was large with a high ceilings, as were most of the rooms in the sprawling, two-story Victorian home at 15 Grove Lane in Greenwich, Connecticut, the house in which she had raised her five children: Prescott Jr., now thirty-one; George, twenty-nine; Nancy, twenty-seven; Jonathan, twenty-two; and William, known as “Bucky,” fifteen and presently at boarding school. It was a large gray-wood, brown-shingled 1902 Victorian with a wraparound porch surrounded by two and a half acres of verdant lawn resembling rolls of stretched-out emerald velvet. When Dorothy first laid eyes on this house, she noticed the way it shimmered in the brilliant morning light, and she knew she had to have it. Back in 1931, though, there was no way Prescott could afford it. So she appealed to her father, Bert, not the most generous man. Much to her surprise, he decided to purchase the estate and put it in her name. She came to realize, though, that the only reason he accommodated her was to get under Prescott’s skin by lording control over him and his family. Soon she would forget the reasons Bert had purchased the estate—though Prescott never did.
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