By Dan Murphy
As all of America mourned the loss of the “First Lady of the Greatest Generation,” as historian Jon Meacham remembered Barbara Pierce Bush last week after her passing at the age of 92, her roots in Westchester and in Rye are also being recalled.
Barbara Pierce was born in Queens on June 8 1925, the daughter of Marvin and Pauline Pierce. She grew up in Rye, on Onondaga Street. Her father was president of the magazine publishing house McCall Corporation. Barbara Pierce attended Milton Elementary School and then Rye Country Day School; both are still active today and both tout her attendance.
In her book, “Barbara Bush: A Memoir,” she wrote:
“Rye was a wonderful place to grow up. It was tiny in those days, and we knew most of the 8,000 people who lived there… Everyone in Rye knew everyone’s business. I remember one humiliating incident when I was 10 years old. I had walked downtown, bought a can of Marshmallow Fluff, and happily ate it all the way home. By the time I got there, my mother already had received three phone calls from people saying they had the cutest thing to tell her: Barbara was walking down the street covered with Marshmallow Fluff, eating right from the can with her fingers. Mother did not think it was quite so cute. To add insult to injury, I was violently ill. I haven’t eaten it since.”
At the age of 16, “Bar,” as her friends began to call her, attended Ashley Hall, a boarding school in Charleston, S.C. While back at home in Rye on Christmas break in 1941, she attended a dance at the Round Hill Country Club in nearby Greenwich, Conn., where she met her future husband and the future 41st president of the United States, George “Poppy” Bush, who was 17.
It was three weeks after Pearl Harbor, and Bush soon enlisted and was off to war. “Bar” Pierce worked for a time in a nuts and bolts factory in Port Chester for the war effort. xxxxxxx
After having his plane shot down in September 1944, young George Bush survived and returned home Christmas Eve 1944. The two were married Jan. 6, 1945 at First Presbyterian Church in Rye – or Rye Presbyterian Church – with a wedding reception at the Apawamis Club in Rye. Barbara was 19 and George was 20.
For the next 73 years, the two had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in American history. And Barbara Bush was one of only two first ladies who had a child who was elected president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.
Mrs. Bush returned to Rye in 1988, just before her husband was elected president, and she still had fond memories. “I’ve been with George to 67 different countries and all 50 of the United States. And believe me when I tell you, there’s no place like home,” she said.
The faculty notes from Rye Country Day school describing Barbara Pierce echoed through her life. “Everyone likes her; she is a radiant human being,” said the school. “She has an intuitive sense of the human situation and a very mature understanding of people. She has individuality, charm, plus a strong and interesting mind.’”
The life of Barbara Pierce Bush that will live on in American history comes from her time after Rye, and her unique personality (or perhaps it wasn’t that unique for generations who grew up 80 years ago during the Depression) was wonderfully remembered by her son, not the president but by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who delivered the eulogy for the Bush family.
“Mom filled our lives with laughter and joy, and was a role model on how to live a life of purpose and meaning,” he said. “She taught us to sit up, look people in the eye, say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ quit whining and stop complaining. Pretty soon the little things became habits… be kind, always tell the truth, serve others, treat everyone as you would want, love God with all your soul. It was consistent, unconditional but tough love.”
Bush also spoke about the other parts of his mother’s personality that helped give our country two presidents.
“She also taught us not to take ourselves too seriously, and that humor is a joy worth participating in, and to live to strive to be genuine and authentic,” he said. “Barbara Pierce Bush was real and that’s why so many loved her.”
This type of love for her children, and love of country and of service, seems to be slowly fading from our country. Perhaps the death of Barbara Pierce Bush, and the memories recalled at her passing, will bring those ethos back into our nation and will be passed onto our children.
One of President George HW Bush’s many love letters to his wife ended with him explaining that through many parts of his early life, he was running, “trying to keep up with Barbara Pierce from Rye, N.Y. I love ya.”
We received emails from our readers about Barbara Pierce Bush and her time in Westchester.
One reads: “I am contacting you regarding an archived issue of your newspaper dated Jan. 6, 1945 that would have covered the marriage of Barbara Pierce and George H.W. Bush. It is my understanding at that time, my aunt, Della Alder was involved in writing the society column for the Rye Chronicle. Would you be able to confirm that information? I am willing to assume any expense involved in this search. If the search proves successful, would you kindly send me a copy of her article? Thank you very much for your attention to this request. Sincerely, Sister Mary Ellen Gleason.”
Unfortunately, all of our newspaper archives from the Rye Chronicle, and our other nine weekly newspapers, were destroyed in a flood and were never archived on microfilm.
Another one of our readers and contributors shared a letter that he wrote to Mrs. Bush in 2016. James Vespe wrote:
“Dear Mrs. Bush: On Saturday afternoon my wife and I went to the annual opening of a place that you and the president probably know very well, Rye Playland.
“I played my customary one game of Skee Ball… the alleys and balls are wood and worn and sticky, probably unchanged from the 1940s when you and the president may have visited.
“I pictured a gangly George Bush plying coins into these same machines, trying to accumulate enough coupons to win an oversized stuffed cat for his ‘bar.’ If so, perhaps the underhanded motion required of Skee Ball players served him well when you relocated to a part of the country where horseshoe pitching is popular.
“Anyway, I wasn’t in midseason form, so I only earned one coupon. Which was fine. I often saved my last Playland coupon of the summer in my wallet all winter, as a reminder that no matter how cold it gets, or how much it snows, spring and summer will come again, breezes off Long Island Sound will cool the summer nights, children will laugh and the Ferris Wheel will glow.
“That’s why I would like you and the president to have this little coupon. Perhaps it will remind you of your own visits to Rye Playland. Of 10-cent trinkets that George spent $10 to win for you. And to confirm that summer will always return.”
