Former first lady Barbara Bush dies at age 92
HOUSTON — Barbara Bush didn’t hesitate to tell people that her trademark pearl necklaces were fake. Americans liked that everything else about the snowy-haired first lady was real.
The wife of the nation’s 41st president and mother of the 43rd brought a plainspoken, grandmotherly style to buttoned-down Washington, displaying an utter lack of vanity about her white hair and wrinkles.
“What you see with me is what you get. I’m not running for president — George Bush is,” she said at the 1988 Republican National Convention, where her husband, then vice-president, was nominated to succeed Ronald Reagan.
Mrs. Bush died Tuesday, according to a statement from family spokesman Jim McGrath. She was 92.