Barbara Bush on 72 Years of Marriage: Still Old, Still In Love

By Kira Davis | 3:30 PM on April 03, 2018

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FILE - In a Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013 file photo, former first lady Barbara Bush listens to a patient's question during a visit to the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine. Bush spokesman Jim McGrath says the wife of former President George H.W. Bush was released from Houston Methodist Hospital late Saturday morning, Jan. 5, 2014. The 88-year-old Bush family matriarch had been hospitalized since Monday. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

In a time when divorce has become commonplace and many publicly visible marriages don’t see the ten year mark, it seems almost unimaginable that any couple could be married for more than seventy years. Heck, sometimes it’s hard to imagine being alive for more than seventy years.

Yet, that is just what George and Barbara Bush have done. In 2018 they celebrated 72 years of marriage. The former First Lady recently wrote an update of sorts for the Smith College Alumnae Quarterly in which she talks about her marriage to the 41st POTUS.

*President-elect George H.W. Bush, right, and his wife Barbara Bush, wave to the crowd at a victory celebration rally, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1988, Houston, Tex. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)*

Mrs. Bush wrote the article in conjunction with several other women from the class of 1947. The former First Lady herself did not actually graduate from Smith. She dropped out in 1944 to marry George Bush, but Smith awarded her an honorary degree in 1989.

*Barbara Pierce, the future Barbara Bush, is shown in her graduation photo from Ashley Hall, a finishing school in Charleston, S.C., in 1943. (AP Photo)*

On her health at 92 years old:

‘I have had great medical care and more operations than you would believe. I’m not sure God will recognize me; I have so many new body parts!’

On her husband, President George H.W. Bush:

‘Also, George Bush has given me the world. He is the best — thoughtful and loving.’

On an astounding 72 years of marriage:

‘I’m still old and still in love with the man I married 72 years ago.’

George H.W. Bush sits on couch with his wife Barbara and their children in 1964. George W Bush sits at right behind his mother. Behind couch are Neil and Jeb Bush. Sitting with parents are Dorothy and Marvin Bush. (AP Photo)

Mrs. Bush also goes on to say that she’s proud of all five of her children for “serving people in their own way”. She and her husband are also grandparents to 17 grandchildren.

Throughout a lifetime of serving with her husband as a representative of the United States of America, serving the public as the First Lady and serving her family as a wife and mother, perhaps one of the most remarkable things about Barbara Bush is her rather “ordinary” persona. She has largely stayed out of scandalous discussions. In her time as First Lady and as the wife of the Vice-President she managed to skirt almost any controversy or questionable public buzz. Her activist platforms were always inclusive and politically benign. She generally declined to discuss her son’s presidency or political decisions.

In short, Barbara Bush has been a sophisticated and gentile representative of the highest office in the land. President Bush has been blessed to have her by his side.