Laura Bush

First Lady

• Born: November 4, 1946
• Place of Birth: Midland, Texas

• President: George W. Bush 2001–2009

Overview

Only the second First Lady in US history to be married to the son of a former president, Laura Bush followed in the footsteps of First Lady Louisa Adams, who served in the early 1800s. A reserved school librarian and teacher from a small town in Texas, Laura Bush was a hesitant political spouse who nevertheless proved herself to be a major force in George W. Bush’s life and political career, emerging as an admired, competent public figure and nationally recognized advocate of literacy and reading.

Early Life

Born Laura Welch on November 4, 1946, and raised in the small town of Midland, Texas, Laura was an only child. Her mother, Jenna, and her father, Harold, who worked as a home builder before his death in 1995, gave their daughter a happy upbringing. An otherwise contented home life was briefly shattered when seventeen-year-old Laura was involved in a car accident that claimed the life of her boyfriend. She was not charged in the crash nor was she seriously injured, and she recovered emotionally with time.

During her formative years, Laura developed a love of reading and was a serious student. After finishing high school in Texas, she enrolled at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1968. She then received her master’s degree in library science at the University of Texas at Austin in 1973. From 1968 until 1977, she pursued a career as a teacher and, later, school librarian with school systems in Austin, Dallas, and Houston.

Although Laura Welch and George W. Bush grew up in the same town in Texas, attended the same junior high school, and, coincidentally, lived in the same apartment complex in Houston as adults, they were not acquaintances. After attending public schools in Texas and the same elite private school that his father and grandfather had attended, George went to Yale University in Connecticut. After graduating, he returned to Texas for a stint with the Texas Air National Guard. It was during this period, when George and Laura lived in the same Houston apartment complex, that they finally met, although it was in their hometown of Midland. The two were introduced at a barbecue by mutual friends who were trying to play matchmaker, even though the two had expressed reservations about the arranged date. The spark of a romance was kindled, and Laura and George started dating after that initial meeting.

Marriage and Family

After a three-month courtship, George asked Laura to marry him, and she agreed to do so. They were wed just one month afterward, on November 5, 1977, in Midland. Both bride and groom were thirty-one years old, marrying quite late by the standards of their contemporaries. George would later call the decision to marry Laura Welch the wisest choice of his life. Although they were opposites in many ways, their union was a happy one. Laura Bush’s influence on her husband was seen as positive by all who knew the couple. George Bush described his youth and young adulthood as irresponsible; it was not until after marrying Laura and having children that he appeared to develop some direction in his life. For example, she is credited with helping him calm his exuberance and recklessness as well as supporting him when he overcame an alcohol addiction.

The newlyweds lived in Midland, and George Bush, having decided to pursue public office, ran for US Congress. Laura Bush was uncomfortable with politics and hesitant about her role in his political career. However, she proved to be a capable campaigner and political spouse. The bid for office was unsuccessful, and Bush pursued a career in the oil business in Texas, followed by part-ownership of the Texas Rangers, a professional baseball team.

In 1981, after a difficult pregnancy and a bout with toxemia, Laura Bush gave birth to twin girls, Jenna and Barbara, named for their maternal and paternal grandmothers. She participated in the political career of her father-in-law, George H. W. Bush, including his campaigns for the presidency in 1980, 1988, and 1992. However, she worked hard to keep the media attention away from her daughters in an effort to give them reasonably normal childhoods. This effort became increasingly difficult when her husband ran successfully for governor of Texas in 1994, but she succeeded in fostering a relatively private family life for her children.

As First Lady of Texas, Laura Bush worked hard to promote family literacy programs and reading, much as her mother-in-law, Barbara Bush, had done while in the White House. Laura Bush was successful in establishing the Texas Book Festival as a prominent event in her home state. The festival brought Texas authors from around the state to Austin and raised awareness for the causes of literacy and reading as well as money for libraries around Texas. In 1998, she helped develop a program that encouraged parents to read with their children and to prioritize reading at home, which would better prepare youngsters to succeed in school.

Laura Bush also championed social causes as First Lady of Texas, including the Community Partners Program, a nonprofit volunteer organization that worked with the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. She helped create an Adopt-a-Caseworker program to help fill the need for such services, and she participated in efforts to provide donated clothing and diapers for neglected and abused children.

Presidency and First Ladyship

Laura Bush made the promotion of literacy and reading her special projects as First Lady, just as her mother-in-law, Barbara Bush, had. During the First Ladyship of her mother-in-law, Laura had begun to work with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, and both the issue and the organization found another champion in the East Wing of the White House. Laura Bush also embraced several important social causes during her First Ladyships in Texas and in the White House, including education, breast cancer awareness, promoting abstinence among schoolchildren, and building public support for adoption. She stated that her mother-in-law and another former First Lady from Texas, Lady Bird Johnson, were her personal heroes and tried to model her approach to the office of First Lady on the examples of both these predecessors.

Despite her initial reservation about entering public life, Laura Bush overcame her natural shyness and emerged as a valuable part of the Bush team. Her husband’s family had a long record of public service and was among the most politically connected families in US history. Therefore, she had an abundance of resources upon which to draw during her years in the White House.

The tragedy of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, resulted in a transformation of Laura Bush. Prior to the terrorist attacks, she was a relatively inactive First Lady, rarely appearing in public, frequently traveling back to her home, and pursuing only the safest of activities. She was admired by the public yet remained remarkably unknown to many Americans. However, the events of September 11 thrust her into the limelight, and two controversial wars—in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003—changed both the tone of governing and the country’s expectations for the couple.

In the hours and days after the attacks, Laura Bush publicly calmed schoolteachers, students, and parents. She wrote an open letter that encouraged the country to be frank but to shield young ones from the consequences of September 11. The First Lady also appeared symbolically with Queen Noor of Jordan in a display of US-Middle East understanding and prayed at the site of one of the downed airliners. Some began calling her the Comforter-in-Chief.

Laura Bush made history when she became the first First Lady to deliver a weekly presidential radio address when she discussed the plight of women in Afghanistan. In March 2005, Mrs. Bush visited Afghanistan, where she appeared with President Hamid Karzai, toured the Women’s Teacher Training Institute in Kabul, and discussed women’s equality with women in the country.

As questions emerged about the possible serious mishandling of both the intelligence leading up to the Iraq War and the Bush administration’s lack of preparation for the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, public support for the president and many of his programs teetered. The Bush administration began employing Laura Bush, who remained popular with Americans, as a public face for many of its family-oriented, nurturing initiatives. For instance, her name and image were used in an effort to promote fatherhood and marriage in the administration’s faith-based initiatives and to underscore the need for teaching moral character in schools, as well as an array of educational and children’s policies.

Likewise, Laura Bush’s reputation and popularity appear to have served as something of a buffer to the allegations of warmongering leveled at her husband and the stories of the Bush daughters’ underage drinking and trouble with the law that arose during the two terms in the White House. None of these incidents ever materialized as a serious scandal or threat to the president’s integrity, which was important because of George W. Bush’s emphasis on morality, Christianity, and values.

Laura Bush remained popular, especially among Republicans, and was a hit at the 2004 Republican National Convention when her husband was nominated for a second term. Although she never became as outspoken on the issues or as bold in her political and social activism as such First Ladies as Hillary Clinton, Rosalynn Carter, or Eleanor Roosevelt, her First Ladyship was transformed after September 11, and she became a far more public spouse than she had been before the event.

During her husband's second term, Laura Bush demonstrated her commitment to aiding the oppressed people of Burma when she headed a United Nations roundtable discussion in 2006 and held a press conference from the White House to persuade the Burmese regime to grant access for international aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. She traveled to the Middle East in the final years of her husband's presidency to continue her work raising awareness about women's health, especially breast cancer.

After leaving the White House, she returned to Texas with her husband. She published her memoir, Spoken from the Heart, in 2010. Three years later, she and her husband founded the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, where she served as the chair of the George W. Bush Institute's Women's Initiative, remaining involved in national and global issues such as health, education, and human rights. With her daughter Jenna, she published a children's picture book titled Our Great Big Backyard in 2016, which celebrated the country's National Parks system. She also served on the boards of the Salvation Army, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, among other nonprofits.

In April 2020, Bush appeared with her successor, former-First Lady Michelle Obama, during the One World: Together at Home special, a televised concert that raised funds for the World Health Organization during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bush and Obama offered words of encouragement and thanks for healthcare workers, first responders, and other people whose jobs put them at risk from the virus.

Legacy

Six months after becoming First Lady, Laura Bush announced the creation of a nonprofit fundraising foundation to help school and classroom libraries buy books. The Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries was intended to help address the fact that public school libraries nationwide had lost funding in recent years as school districts suffered budget cuts.

“Connecting children with books is a critical step toward instilling the love of reading early,” said Laura Bush. She added that her work with other book lovers would ensure that every child in the United States had access to “the building blocks of learning through books.”

Along with the foundation’s establishment, she carried out the legacy she had established as First Lady of Texas by hosting the first National Book Festival at the Library of Congress in September 2001. Each subsequent year of her First Ladyship, she helped promote the National Book Festival around the country and continued to feature authors and the importance of reading in her speeches and public appearances.

Bibliography

Bush, George W., with Karen Hughes. A Charge to Keep. New York: Morrow, 1999. Print.

Bush, Laura. Spoken from the Heart. New York: Scribner, 2010. Print.

Ide, Arthur Frederick. The Father’s Son: George W. Bush. Boston: Minuteman, 1998. Print.

"Laura W. Bush." George W. Bush Presidential Center, www.bushcenter.org/people/laura-w-bush. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

Mena, Kelly, and Kate Bennett. " Laura Bush and Michelle Obama Share Hopeful Message on Global Citizen Concert Special." CNN, 18 Apr. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/04/18/politics/michelle-obama-laura-bush-global-citizen-together-at-home/index.html. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

Meyer, Peter. "Education Activist Pursues an Ambitious Agenda: A Conversation with Laura Bush." Education Next, Spring 2013, www.educationnext.org/education-activist-pursues-an-ambitious-agenda/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

Middleton, William. "The New George W. Bush Library Opens in Dallas." Architectural Digest. June 2013, www.architecturaldigest.com/story/george-w-bush-presidential-library-robert-am-stern-dallas-texas-article. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

Minutaglio, Bill. First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty. New York: Times, 1999. Print.

Watson, Robert P. First Ladies of the United States: A Biographical Dictionary. Boulder: Rienner, 2001. Print.

Watson, Robert P., and Anthony J. Eksterowicz, eds. The Presidential Companion: Readings on the First Ladies. 2nd ed. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2006. Print.