Former first lady remembered by Granite Staters as being 'graciously ordinary'
Barbara Bush leaves lasting impression on New Hampshire
Barbara Bush leaves lasting impression on New Hampshire
Barbara Bush leaves lasting impression on New Hampshire
Texas may be their home, but northern New Englanders also lay claim to the Bush family.
The family's longtime summer estate on Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport, Maine, is close to New Hampshire, where the Bushes made many friends, such as former Republican New Hampshire Sen. Ruth Griffin.
At 92, Griffin is just two months younger than Barbara Bush, a woman she's known and respected for decades.
“It didn't matter whether it was me. There were other people there. She knew everybody's name, and that's a gift. It shows the interest they have in other human beings,” she said.
Griffin met the Bushes at a convention in the early 1970s and has been a Bush supporter ever since.
“She had her own agenda, and that was the wife of George Herbert Walker Bush and the mother of all those kids,” Griffin said.
She has years of warm memories, many of them at Geno's Chowder & Sandwich Shop in Portsmouth's south end -- a longtime Republican stump spot.
A photo of friend Evelyn Marconi greeting Mrs. Bush at the door hangs on the wall.
Marconi’s daughter, Francesca Marconi Fernald, is now the owner of Geno’s. Fernald grew up around it all.
“It was a pleasure and a privilege to know her, and the fact that she became the first lady -- and it was no ripple in her -- she just continued to conduct herself the way she always had,” Fernald said.
The extraordinary woman was remembered for seeming so graciously ordinary.
“She was just no different than you and me and Pinky Lee. We were all the same,” Griffin said. “They even live like you and me.”
From the binoculars by the president’s chair to the slipcovers on the furniture, Griffin said the Bush family home on Walker’s Point feels like being home.