Several Former US Presidents to Attend Funeral of Barbara Bush

VOA News

Several former U.S. presidents will be among the hundreds of mourners to pay their respects Saturday to former first lady Barbara Bush, who died Tuesday at the age of 92.

She was the wife of the 41st U.S. president, George H.W. Bush, and the mother of George W. Bush, the country’s 43rd president.

In addition to her husband and oldest son, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are expected to be among the former presidents to attend Bush’s funeral at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in the southern city of Houston, Texas.

Bush and her husband began attending the church after moving to Houston in the 1950s.

First lady Melania Trump is also expected to attend the invitation-only service, as are former first ladies Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Bush will be buried at the Bush Library at Texas A&M University, about 160 kilometers from Houston, where the couple’s 3-year-old daughter, Robin, was buried after dying of leukemia in 1953.

The former first lady selected her second-oldest son and former Florida governor Jeb Bush to deliver the eulogy, along with her longtime friend Susan Baker, the wife of former secretary of State James Baker III. Historian Jon Meacham, who wrote a biography of her husband, will also participate in the eulogy.

Thousands of people attended a viewing Friday to say farewell to Bush, one of the country’s most influential political matriarchs.