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Presidents pay their respects as Barbara Bush is laid to rest

The nation bid a solemn farewell to Barbara Pierce Bush, the former First Lady who holds a unique place in American hearts and history, at her funeral in Houston Saturday.

Bush, a national matriarchal figure and the wife of the country’s 41st president and mother of its 43rd, stands alone with Abigail Adams at the center of such a political dynasty.

Her private funeral at the Gothic St. Martin’s Cathedral, the nation’s largest Episcopalian church, was thronged with 1,500 mourners.

Her husband, President George H.W. Bush, was pushed in a wheelchair to a front pew. He followed two of the couple’s four sons, President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

First Lady Melania Trump attended, seated alongside President Barack Obama. Former first ladies Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, along with President Bill Clinton, joined them in a front row.

Buses shuttled dignitaries to the cathedral for the somber ceremony. Former first family members like Caroline Kennedy and Chelsea Clinton attended, along with former Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona, retired Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell, and officials who served in the Bush administrations.

Barack and Michelle Obama greet Melania Trump at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church.Getty Images

President Trump, who like other sitting presidents remained away from the services, tweeted that he would be watching televised coverage from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“Today, my thoughts and prayers are with the entire Bush family,” he posted at 11:45 am. “In memory of First Lady Barbara Bush, there is a remembrance display located at her portrait in the Center Hall of the White House.”

The large Bush family — the couple had six children, 17 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren — took prominent roles in the ceremony, acting as readers and pallbearers.

Eight grandsons escorted her coffin, draped in a white shroud adorned with a large gold cross, up the long central aisle to the sanctuary.

Granddaughter Elizabeth Dwen Andrews could barely contain her tears as she read from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven … a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

Son Jeb Bush delivered one of three eulogies.

“She was our teacher and role model of how to live a life of purpose and meaning,” Bush said.

“She called her style a benevolent dictatorship, but honestly it wasn’t always benevolent. There were no safe spaces or microaggressions allowed with Barbara Pierce Bush.”

Hillary and Bill Clinton arrive at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church.Getty Images

Presidential historian Jon Meacham, who cited both Bushes’ service in World War II and beyond, called her “the First Lady of the Greatest Generation.”

Her husband “was the only boy she ever kissed,” Meacham said. “She said her children always wanted to throw up when they heard that.”

Barbara Bush was known for her mild, grandmotherly looks – and for her steel spine. She was an unobtrusive but fiercely protective political partner for her husband George H.W. Bush, whose lengthy career in public service included stints as U.N. ambassador, CIA director, two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president, and a single term in the White House, from 1989 to 1993.

“Please notice — hairdo, makeup, designer dress,” she said at an inauguration event in 1989. “Look at me good this week, because it’s the only week.”

Born Barbara Pierce in New York City in 1925, Bush grew up in well-to-do Rye, N.Y. Her 73-year marriage began when she was still a teenager. She and George met at a dance in 1941 when both were in high school.

The casket is brought into St. Martin’s Episcopal Church during the funeral for Barbara Bush.Getty Images

On their first date, she wrote in her 1994 memoir, George “begged his mother to let him use the Oldsmobile that night because it had a radio and their other car did not. He was so afraid we would sit in stony silence and have nothing to say to each other. For years he has teased me that there was no silence that night and I haven’t stopped talking since.”

They carried on their romance by letter for four more years, as he became a Navy flier during World War II.

She studied at Smith College while he served in the Pacific. She dropped out after her freshman year. “I was just interested in George,” she said.

Two weeks after he returned to the US on Christmas Eve 1944, after being shot down by the Japanese, they were married – at ages 19 and 20.

“In wartime, the rules change,” she wrote later. “You don’t wait until tomorrow to do anything.”

They moved 11 times in their first six years as George attended Yale, then launched his career in Texas.

Devastated by the death of daughter Robin, 3, of leukemia in 1953, her hair went prematurely white at age 28.

Mourners pause as former Barbara Bush lies in repose during the visitation.AP

Bush’s persona as a traditional, retiring political wife disappeared behind the scenes, staffers said. “She definitely is the institutional memory of slights,” one said in 1992.

“Look out, the Silver Fox is really mad at you,” the affable President Bush would warn reporters who had earned his wife’s ire.

Yet in 1988 in New Orleans. she became the first candidate’s spouse to address the national convention that nominated her husband, establishing a tradition that continues to this day.

As First Lady, she visited a Washington home for AIDS-afflicted infants and hugged its director — who was himself an AIDS patient. The gesture, made at a time when fear of the illness was rampant, made headlines.

“She always took her duties seriously,” son George wrote. “But never herself.”

The two former presidents left the church together, with the younger Bush pushing his father’s wheelchair down the aisle. They frequently paused so both could greet mourners in the pews.

Barbara Bush was buried at her daughter Robin’s side at the George H.W. Bush Library and Museum at Texas A&M University in College Station, Tx. Scores of locals lined the highway to pay their respects as the funeral cortege sped by.

She died Tuesday at home in Houston, at age 92.