 We're ready to get started with this afternoon's second panel, First Lady's Family View. Hello, I'm Warren Finch. I'm the director of the George Bush Library and College Station. It's a great pleasure to be here at the LBJ Library. I'd like to take the credit for starting these First Lady's conferences in Texas, but it wasn't my idea. It was actually my colleague's idea, Mark Uptigrove, here at the Johnson Library, so I'd like to thank him. I'd also like to thank Anita McBride. She was, we all saw her conference at American University and decided that it would be a great idea to continue her idea here in Texas. I'd also like to thank American University for their support, the White House Historical Association. And now, this afternoon's second panel. The moderator of this afternoon will be Jean Becker. Jean has been chief of staff to former president George Bush since 1994, supervising his office operations in both Houston and in Kennebunkport, Maine. She took a leave of absence in 1999 to edit and research all the best, George Bush, my life and letters, and other writings. She served as deputy press secretary to First Lady Barbara Bush from 1989 to 1992. After the election in 1992, she moved to Houston to help Mrs. Bush with the editing and researcher of her autobiography, Barbara Bush and memoir. And later assisted with Mrs. Bush's follow-up book, Reflections. Jean was a newspaper reporter for 10 years, four with USA Today. She grew up in a family farm in Martinsburg, Missouri and was a valedictorian of her high school class and graduated from the University of Missouri. Please welcome all friends, Jean Becker and the first of our panelists. Barbara Bush is a passionate and compelling voice in a global fight to confront some of the most prevalent health equity issues of our time. As a co-founder and president of the Global Health Corporation, she organizes the connections without standing young leaders on the front lines to promote global health equity. Under her leadership, the Global Health Corporation has won wide praise for its innovative work and has been named one of the 14 most innovative startups. She is the daughter of former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush. Secondly, Gina Bush Hager. Gina Bush, Jenna, sorry, Jenna, Jenna. Has seen firsthand how small changes can make large differences in a single life. Currently the chair of UNICEF's Next Generation, an initiative dedicated to reducing the number of preventable childhood deaths around the world. Her experience traveling throughout the world with UNICEF, where she saw firsthand the plight faced by underprivileged, inspired her to write and a story, a journey of hope about a 17 year old single mother living with HIV. She is a contributor to the Today Show, where she stores, where she shares stories about regular people doing extraordinary things. She also co-wrote, read all about it with her mother, former First Lady Laura Bush. She is the daughter of the former President George W. Bush. Jenna Bush, the third of our panelists, Steve Ford. Steve enjoyed a successful acting career for over 25 years, appearing in over 30 films and many guest leads in television. His credits include the films Transformers, Black Hawk Down, Contact, and one of my favorites, When Harry Met Sally. He also hosted the primetime series Secret Service for NBC and starred for six years as a lead character on the Emmy Award winning Daytime Show, The Young and the Restless. Prior to his film career, Steve worked on the Professional Rodeo Circuit and served three years on the board of directors of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. And currently serves as chairman of the President Gerald R. Ford Foundation. He is the son of former president and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford. And our fourth panelist, Linda Johnson Robb. Robb's passionate interest in children's literature led to more than 40 years, began more than 40 years ago, when she volunteered to read children's books and hospitals, where she discovered that many children wanted and needed books so badly that hospital staff let them take home the books she read. This experience prompted her involvement in forming, an informing member of the board of reading is fundamental in 1968 and she has been active ever since. She was board chair of RIF from 1996 to 2001 and has traveled nationwide to rally the support for this program. She attended George Washington University and is an honor graduate of the University of Texas. Robb is the daughter of President Lyndon Bang Johnson's and Claudia Taylor Ladybird Johnson. She has married the former Virginia Governor and US Senator Charles Robb and is the mother of three daughters and three grandchildren. Thank you all for joining us. First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm sort of embarrassed that Warren Toljo's valedictorian of my high school class, I could hear my sister who's in the audience giggling, there were 57 of us. So I only had to be smarter than 56 other people. Okay, first of all, I was told to keep on time and to look at the clock on the left. It is stuck on court 20 to five. It says, so Mark, I'm gonna leave it up to you. I have the easiest job here today because I just need to stay out of the way of these four people. So I'm gonna jump right in. We're gonna start with Linda, which seems appropriate since we're at her dad's library. Since we just survived another election and since all four of these have survived elections with their parents, I would like for each of them just to share an election day memory, election night, the morning after, just something about that day that you remember. First, in terms of full disclosure, I would like to say we are so bipartisan that I'm the only Democrat here. Have you noticed, I asked Mark, I said, Mark, how is it that I'm the only Democrat? And Mark says, well, you have to understand there are two Bush administrations. Well, I'll get you, Mark, just you wait. And second, I would like to say that my daughter, Catherine, is here to hear me. Now, I'm sure Lara Bush is gonna be much more forgiving. I have my daughter here to watch me and they're not gonna stay to hear you. But that's the way it is nowadays. Kathy, after all, lives here. Now, I would like to tell about probably what I think was one of the most interesting election memories that I have and it didn't happen on election day. It happened on the 200th anniversary of the White House and President Clinton invited all of the former presidents and first ladies and I volunteered my husband to be my mother's date for the evening. Now, we had just lost our election to the Senate. This was 2000. We had just lost our election. And there was still a feeling of a little tension. We were very kindly invited up and I say we. I was invited to come up with mother and Chuck and the Fords and the Carter's and of course the Clintons and the Bushes, the senior Bushes and we were all waiting because as you know, there was this time between the election and when we found out who was going to be our next president. They were counting ballots or not counting ballots, whatever they did in Florida. So there we all were upstanding in the hall of the second floor remembering all of us, at least I was, when we were there, when it was our house and everybody there had lost an election. I looked around and I thought there, Bill Clinton, he's outgoing president, he had lost an election and there was Gerald Ford, he had lost an election and there was Barbara Bush and President Bush. They had lost an election. We had lost an election. We all had something in common. And I thought that's really the way it is when you're a former president and a former White House child is we do have so much in common. And I think what you've heard today and I think you will hear is that we all are a large sorority, fraternity, whatever because no matter how you might differ on any issue, we've all been there. And so to me that was probably the most interesting election night and as it was of course, Barbara and George Bush were there kind of waiting to see and the funny thing to me is just showing how easy going your grandfather was. He said, well I'm leaving Barbara here to worry about the voting. He said, I'm going off hunting. And I think he was going with maybe Secretary Baker but they were going halfway around the world. Here we are on Tinder hooks, waiting to see if what's gonna happen in the presidential election. And you know, what is his election? He was going off but I know it was something that that was election feeling that changed my life and made me understand that everybody's been there. Steve? I'm gonna spin it a little bit. I'm gonna go to the front end of dad's presidency because of everybody up here at the panel, we sort of got there a different way in that it was never expected. Dad had been a congressman for 26 years in the state of Michigan and because Agnew had to step down he got appointed vice president and then 10 months later in August 1974 when Nixon stepped down. Here you had a man that was gonna walk into the East room of the White House, put his hand on a Bible that Richard described beautifully. Mom held the Bible and dad took the oath of office and kids we all sat there that had not been elected by the American people. He'd been appointed vice president assumed the presidency. So our first experience was to come in a different way than every other family up here. Probably will never happen again in history. And it's interesting because after dad was sworn in we went and took a picture, photo of the family behind the Oval Office desk and that night we didn't get to movement in the White House because Nixon had left so quickly, so unexpectedly, they left their daughter and son-in-law David Eisenhower to pack all their clothes and belongings. It literally took seven or eight days. We had to go back to our little house in Alexandria, Virginia and the suburbia. The neighborhood was surrounded by Secret Service. We had been living there as dad. It was vice president. And I'll never forget that night mom is cooking dinner. I mean, literally we are sitting around the dinner table and mom's cooking dinner and she looks over at my dad and she goes, Jerry, something's wrong here. You just became president of the United States and I'm still cooking. And that was our first seven days we're spent there and literally dad would commute to the office every day which was the Oval Office. So we got there a little different way than the rest of the panel did. Jenna? Well, we got there a different way too as you've already brought up. Our election night lasted for 36 days. I think that's right mom. So it was a pretty stressful time I think although probably more stressful for my mom because I was a freshman at the University of Texas and Barbara was a freshman at Yale. And so we had our structured lives and we kind of, as college students are slightly selfish and worrying about our second semester of college. I was also at the University of Texas and I stayed here and came back and finished the first semester and didn't go to the White House. Yeah, we never lived in the White House but anyway, beyond that, I think one thing that people don't realize during elections and I talked about this a little bit at work is that all of these people are our parents. They're not politicians and sadly in modern politics it seems like campaigns have become more and more negative. So you've just witnessed a year or a year and a half of the people you love the most being criticized and then you have this one night and for the rest of America it's so polarized. You want your candidate, you want your party but for kids, you want the best for your parents because for 18 years they've wanted the best for us. And then again, four years later, and I think that's difficult and I wish that Americans saw politicians and all people as people. I wish things were more three-dimensional because that's all politicians that put themselves out there are spending time away from their families and making that sacrifice. But my mom, there is that famous picture and I wish we had it of her doing dishes on election night and I think that was just to keep the normalcy and also because she has slight OCD. But. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well my stories are obviously very similar to Jenna's but also we also had another election night which was when our grandfather was elected to be president and we were six and I just remember thinking it was so fun because our whole family got together and all of our cousins were there and we got to play and I don't think we realized how big of a deal it was and I actually remember and this actually speaks so much to his personality and his humility that I thought everyone's grandfather became president. I had no idea that it was just our grandfather and I assumed all my friends had an election night at some point with their grandfather and it just happened to be our grandfather's turn that night. But I think regardless, we've been really lucky in that we have a very close family. Obviously both our father and grandfather were president but our family always came together on every election night. We had all of our aunts and uncles and all of our cousins because it can be very stressful and we just wanted to be with each other. Okay, the twins are gonna kill me but this was in your grandmother's book. I swear that the day after the election in 1988 flying from Houston to Washington on Air Force Two, Barbara Bush wrote in her diary, I'm the next first lady of the United States but the twins have stuffed up the toilet on the plane and I'm stuffing the toilet. That's not true. I mean, how can they know that it was that we stuffed up the toilet? Did she investigate it? Okay. Did she investigate the toilet? Maybe we should talk about this later but she is coming later. I know, well maybe not then. And before I ask my next- Is there tonight in front of her? I don't think so. Have you ever confronted my grandmother? Yeah. You can confront her on our behalf. Okay. Okay, before I ask my next question, I just have to say this is very impressive, Mark and Linda, they have fixed the clock. Dearing that the broken clock is now fixed. So, okay I was gonna ask each of you to tell us something about your moms that we would find maybe shocking but since one of the moms is here, I'm gonna change it to merely surprising. But tell us something about your mothers that we don't think we know and we'll let you two collect your thoughts and start with Steve. Well, I think as far as mom and dad went, I don't know that this will shock anybody because they just had such a love affair. They're, it was interesting to hear the panel before and how the wives were such an intricate part of each presidency in a different way and how they supported different things. And a couple of the issues or the main issue that mom went through which was breast cancer had such an impact on her life. She didn't just find a issue that she wanted to put herself. It was thrust upon her and if she were here today she would tell you that she was just a, just an ordinary woman during a very extraordinary time and three weeks, four weeks into dad's presidency she's diagnosed with breast cancer at a time when you couldn't say the word breast let alone be transparent about having mastectomy surgery. And I think for me that their relationship when dad stepped in and the two of them decided to be so transparent showed their love affair for each other and their support and I can remember them holding hands and standing in front of the press and saying we're gonna take the shame off of this disease which was a closet disease for women back in 1974. And Richard, I think it was Richard who mentioned earlier the letters and cards that came in for mom. There were some for dad too that came in and said thank you Mr. President for showing me how to stand next to my wife as she goes through breast cancer. So, but their lives are so intermingled and the presidency, there was more support for mother during the campaign. There were buttons that said Betty's husband for president. So that tells you how important she was to dad's presidency. Jenna? Well, where do I begin? No, no, cause she's sitting here. I mean, we'll be honest, but I think one thing, we'll be honest, but we won't shock anybody. I mean, I think one thing that Anita kind of alluded to but didn't really get to is that, I think people did think our mom was kind of this cookie cutter mother. And those who know her, and plenty of people in Austin do know that, I mean, she is a great mother. But again, it goes to the whole thing where it's much easier to see people as one dimensional. And she's a very strong lady. She just happens to not shout. And I think that's why people saw her as maybe more conservative than she was or is. And I think also one thing about both of my parents that I feel like is a great trait to have in parents is that they wanted us to become our own people. And so they're both very open. And I don't know if people would get that from their public stereotype. And she's a secret Rastafarian. Shit. I hope I didn't steal that from you. You did. I was gonna say she was a secret Rastafarian also. Our mom loves music and she loves Bob Marley. And when we used to, actually when we lived in Austin and my dad was the governor, I heard in high school a rumor that Toots and the Maytals was playing at Antones. So mom and I snuck out of the house and walked down there to wait and see if they were coming. They didn't come. But mom loves music. And so when we were seven, she took us to our first concert, which was Paul Simon. And then since we lived in Austin, there's always such great music. So she took us to see Paul Simon again when we were in high school and Bob Dylan. And we've seen a lot of great concerts with our mom, which most people may not guess. Linda. Well, one thing, my mother loved gun smoke. And you have to remember, this was in the really dark ages. And sometimes state dinners interfered with watching gun smoke. So somehow, you know, daddy just, he was very fond of mother. But somehow he got WACA, that's the White House Communications Agency, to find a way to tape gun smoke for mother. Now, this is the 60s. They hadn't invented that yet. But they would somehow tape gun smoke for mother so that she could watch it. Now, I probably shouldn't be telling this because it was probably legal, but anyway. And wouldn't you know it that Mr. Arnes was a Republican? Again, how bipartisan we are. Now, I just like to make a short commercial while we're here. And to say that one of the wonderful things is that the former presidents and the sitting presidents and first ladies have been so wonderful to my family. I'd like to start with Papa George. And my father was president when he came into the Congress. And because he had known his father, he had served with your great-grandfather. He then invited George Bush to come to the White House. And they got to be friends. Now, when we left in 68, now you know Nixon then was inaugurated. Well, those nice Bushes came all the way out to Andrews to wish us goodbye. Don't you wish we had that bipartisanship now? Yeah. On the day that Steve's mother was going to have this operation, President Ford came to the inauguration of the opening, the dedication of the LBJ Grove in Washington. And we have pictures of Kathy who was very young three or four years old holding President Ford's hand. He was helping her down the steps of a wonderful picture. And he did that. And then the Ford's invited us to come back to the White House and we have a picture which you will see later of us standing in Betty Ford's bedroom. And there's the suitcase all packed. We didn't know, she didn't tell us. So that night when we heard it on the radio and television we just couldn't believe it. Laura Bush told me when I came to the White House as a Senate spouse, she said, well, if your mother ever comes up here, I'd love to have her come over, love for her to come over and see the White House and I'll give her a tour. And we built an elevator so mother could come and stay with us. And when she came, Laura Bush had her over to the White House and it was so wonderful. So we are very lucky with the presidents and that we've had because they all understand what it's like and they've all been so good to the other people who have been there. Thank you. Okay. This might be sort of hard, but since this conference is about the legacy of the First Ladies, it's not be as personal with this question and answer, but more about your mother's legacy. The panel before us talked about, I mean, all your mothers accomplished so many great things, but if you could just talk about one thing that when you think about your mom, it's what you're the most proud of her and what she did, what would it be? And we'll start with Jenna. Well, I don't wanna steal Barbara's. I feel like I always steal her interest. Do you wanna go first? Barbara, go first. Okay. You can go first the next time. You can go first the next time. Thank you. Okay, so I would say probably her work for women and all over, really. And we were so lucky because our parents took us on travels to Africa and so we got to see PEPFAR being enrolled and being in clinics and schools and meeting people whose lives would be forever changed. So I would say her work for women as a, but more broadly, probably PEPFAR. And my dad too, I'm very proud of him for that. I'll let you talk about your dad's forward dad. I think, definitely echo that and also this was brought up before by Anita, but I think after 9-11, mom played such a, I'm gonna cry. It's okay, all wishes come true. I know, in front of people, in front of a lot of people. I think the work that she did after 9-11 and just how comforting she was to everyone in the country is an incredible legacy and was really critical to the country healing after 9-11. Linda, Linda. Well, every spring, I am blessed because people come up to me and say, oh, I just love to see the beautiful daffodils and oh, the planting on the highways. I mean, they think mother is out there planting every flower still. And I say, oh yes, absolutely, she is. Now if you happen to read the garden section of the Washington Post recently, in the garden section, there was an article about mother and planting. Now for those of you who have a little extra money and care about what Washington looks like, they are now trying to raise money to put more plants back in because believe it or not in 40 years some things die. And so they're trying to redo it and of course the first one they asked us in money was me but it is, I think mother hated the word beautification but she certainly was the Johnny Apple seed of at least natural beauty. Well, again, it would be two things and one of them happened after the president, the first one was breast cancer for what mom went through. The second one was addiction, alcoholism and drug addiction that again, she was faced with and in her own way, in her own special way and again, mom and dad together because they were such a team. The moment she raised her hand and said, my name is Betty, I'm an alcoholic and again was transparent like she could be. It changed the dynamics and the stereotype of another disease, alcoholism. So it would be those two things for breast cancer and alcoholism, recovery. I think, let's talk about your dads. I didn't warn you I was gonna ask this question but we wanna be equal opportunity here because I know you're all obviously proud of your fathers. So we're gonna start with you this time. Just talk about your dad a little bit, something that, this sort of a two for question, something that we might not know about him and something that you're just really proud of something he did. Well, I think Jenna kind of got to this before but our dad is an incredible dad, obviously but he's an extremely open minded person and I feel like the perception of him in the media is often not that and he's sort of characterized as someone that isn't and I think we are so thrilled that he was our dad as he raised us to be very open minded and accepting and to pursue whatever we're passionate about and then that gets me to what I'm very proud of him for which is all the work that he did for PEPFAR and the President's Malaria Initiative and I work every day on global health issues because I got to see the work firsthand that the American people were doing on health issues when they launched PEPFAR and made sure that everyone that was HIV positive in the developing country had access to the medicine that they needed to make sure that they had a life and that they had a future and when I was 21 years old, PEPFAR was being launched I was in college and my parents traveled throughout Africa to launch it and I went with them which was incredible that they allowed me to go with them but I do remember on the first trip that we took we went to Uganda and people, literally thousands of people were lining the streets just because they wanted a drug that they could take every day to live and I go back to Uganda now multiple times a year and it is a totally different place because of it and to me that's an incredible, incredible thing to have been done and it's been a game changer around the world and on that note today actually the Mark Dible who worked for my father and implemented PEPFAR was elected to be the executive director of the Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria that happened today which is really exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well I think, you know it's hard because those are obviously the things that I think I agree with. You know, I mean we got to go to Africa and we've been able to go back. Our parents took us back last year for our 30th birthday. Um. Ah. Anyway, and it was really incredible to see the way that these countries have changed but I guess one thing that people probably don't realize about all presidents is that it's not just a four or an eight year job and our parents, I think especially right now, you know they're really loving continuing the work that they did. I think it's maybe easier. I don't know if you would have to ask my mother but I feel like it might be even easier to do this policy work that they so love now because there's not the bureaucratic politics to stand in the way and so they're still working and they went to Africa. One thing you may not know is that they spent two weeks, two weeks, about two weeks this summer living in Africa. My mom and my dad together and my dad actually built a clinic from the ground up and my mom was putting together a library. You can tell about exactly what you did but. Um. The point is, is that the work isn't done and I don't think it will, I told my parents the other day, like aren't you gonna retire? I could use you retiring so we could have some more time to talk. I mean, they still travel all the time but also just how much they put family first. After September 11th, we were turning 19 and they had planned a birthday party for us at Camp David because we lived here and Barbara lived in New Haven so we didn't get to see them the way that we had wanted and so they had planned to have some of our friends come up to Camp David and have a week in there and we called, I remember calling in October and I said we should cancel the birthday party and they said no, we wanna keep it, we wanna make sure to keep it going, keep coming and I think that shows really what their priorities were. Gotcha, a million things flashed through my head here when I think about both dad and mom but dad was, I'll spin it around as back towards mom, he was so supportive of her and there's a wonderful story that came out. Mom was out there promoting the Equal Rights Amendment for Women back in the 70s and it really wasn't something that was on the Republican platform at that time and it wasn't, to be honest, it wasn't on the Democratic platform either but mom was out there promoting that and working very hard for that and there was a meeting that happened over in the White House, the West Wing and it was kind of the political types we're talking to dad and they delicately tried to encourage my father to say Mr. President, if you could just maybe, gosh, get your wife to, you know, just until the election's over, just calm down and dad in his wonderful way smiled and he pointed over to the East Wing of the White House and he says, that's where Betty's office is and I know she's in the office today and if any of you all would like to go over there today and speak to her, you can go ahead and he said, no one got up to go over there so I would say that he had a wonderful way of supporting her causes and letting her have a voice and it kind of reminded me when she came out of the hospital after the breast cancer and a wonderful welcome by the staff at the White House and she was very strong and trying to keep a stiff upper lip but she had fears and they talked about this kind of this intimate moment that where mom expressed some of those fears to dad about gosh, Jerry, I'm scared to death. I gotta be first lady and I'm afraid I can't wear my evening gowns anymore for state dinners and you know, she's thinking about that instead of herself and my dad in a wonderful way said, you know, Betty, come on, don't be silly. If you can't wear it cut low in the front, wear it cut low in the back. And he just, he just, they had this wonderful relationship of supporting each other so that was, yeah, that's a little insight you may not know. Well, my father was a teacher all of his life and I don't, I mean, I guess I'm supposed to say civil rights is the most important thing and it was but all of that together was with daddy because he'd grown up with poor people all around him and he knew how much education could change their lives and he had grown up teaching Hispanic children so he knew about discrimination and the needs for changes in civil rights and he had seen what happened with the health of the older people in his neighborhood and the sacrifices families had to make because their grandmother or aunt or somebody needed medical help and they, so all of these things, I don't think I could divide one but I just wish he could see that I have produced a teacher. My Catherine, my Catherine is sitting right here but my Jennifer, the baby, she is a high school math teacher in Washington well in Virginia and I know how proud he would be because he was always trying to give us teaching moments. He was trying to explain everything he was doing to us and teaching us about the effects of some of the laws that were passed. And one of the things generally about first ladies I'd like to say is that I think as a feminist I was chair of the President's Advisory Committee for Women, just want you to know this. And yay. And I think a lot of women gave a lot of these men a pass on some of the women's issues because we thought he's married to that wonderful Laura Bush. He's bound to really be on our side. He's just being quiet because you know and we know where your mother was and so we for sure and we're all gonna vote for Betty, period. And I think that is true and I remember being in Houston for this big women's meeting and there we were, I was there because I had this position. I was a Carter appointee and there we were with Mrs. Carter and my mother and Mrs. Ford all up there for ERA. And it was a telling moment and it really was a wonderful moment from my standpoint. I now would like for each of you to talk a little bit about yourself and this may be sort of hard since this is your life and it's hard to imagine what your life would be like if your father's had not been President but looking back at what you've done and how you grew up and what transpired how do you think living the White House experience whether you lived there or not changed you either as a person or maybe changed your life? What effect do you think it's had on how you're living your life and we'll start with our token man who were so happy he's here. Steve, why don't you start and tell us how you think it affected you? Well, again, we're a little bit different. Our family's a little bit different than the others up here. If you were the daughter of a Bush family member or Reagan or something, you almost might have expected that your father was gonna run for President someday or you'd be involved in it in some way. In our case, Dad had just been a congressman was literally getting ready to retire from Congress and all of a sudden he gets nominated for Vice President by Nixon and Mom was waiting to get out of politics. She couldn't wait. And I remember Dad put in his arm around her and saying, you know, Betty, don't worry, Vice Presidents don't do anything and which didn't really work out but none of us thought we would ever be in the White House. So to get catapulted there, it certainly changed my life. I'm glad I had two older siblings two brothers and a younger sister to talk to and made it easier. Today I'm able to do things in the public arena that I'd never be able to do. You know, I go, I'm going 19 years of recovery and alcoholism just like my mother. I can go talk to school kids now because I have that platform because I'm the son of a former president. They listen to you a little bit. So you try to give something back and you watch your parents do the same thing. So I speak to school kids. I go to prisons. I go to juvenile detention centers, talk about my sobriety and grace of God in my life and what mom went through. And so it certainly has changed my life and for the better because you're able to give back and you have a platform to do it, so. Linda? Well, I want to do the other side. There are many, many wonderful things about being a white-ass child. I wouldn't get to be here today. But the other side of it is, and I thought about this a lot when I was heading up this women's commission, is that women are often seen in reference to somebody else. I want all of you to go back and look at the obituaries in the papers. And the first line is usually wife of, in my case, the first line I expect in my obituary will be daughter of. And then the second piece will be wife of because I've gotten, you know, daughter of president and Mrs. Johnson, wife of governor and Mrs. Rob. And I think we all yearn to have our own place. No matter how big or small it may be in the world, we want to be identified. So I've told my children if they get to write my obituary and pay to put it in the paper, I want it the way I want it. And I want the first line to be professional volunteer. Now, I'm in that, that's, I'm being a professional volunteer because that's what my parents taught me to do. When I got a job after college and got my first paycheck, my mother said, well, now, who are you gonna give it to? And I thought, huh? And her belief was that she should give your first paycheck away. And so, of course, being a smart girl that I am, I had some trees put in Johnson City in memory of my grandparents. But that was just a given. We have been very blessed. We aren't financially stressed. You can afford to give that away. And the most valuable thing I have really is my time. I only have 24 hours a day. And so, whereas I can vary in amounts of money, my time is the most valuable thing really that I can give away. And so, that's what I've tried to do. That's why I'm a professional volunteer and don't have as many of those paid jobs by my name. And that's what I learned from my parents and I feel very, very blessed at all the experiences that they gave me. And so, remember, Catherine, first line, professional volunteer. And then, be sure and put Riff way up at the top. And I might add that Barbara Bush was right in there working for us. And when I was chair of Riff, I asked Laura Bush to be on our committee. I'm not a dumb woman, you know. And I asked her to be on it and I got her to be on our advisory committee because we want people who care about literacy to be up there supporting us. Well, so, as Jenna mentioned earlier, we obviously never lived in the White House because we were already in college when our father was elected president. We were freshmen. But that being said, my parents made it really clear that we were allowed, we could tag along for anything that they were doing. And so, I think my sister and I both, what we benefited from was the exposure that our parents offered to us. We traveled to Africa, Asia, Latin America, South America with them. And we got to see all the initiatives that they were implementing firsthand and meet the people that were implementing these initiatives on the ground every day firsthand. And I think that completely shaped my career. I had wanted to be an architect and now I run a non-profit focused on global health issues. Very linear, obviously. But the reason that I got interested in global health was because my parents allowed me to be exposed to what they were working on and what they cared about and also the people that they worked with every day. And then the one other thing is that everyone that works in government is serving and they're excited about service to other people. And every day I work with young people that wanna serve in global health. And I think that's just my way of trying to encourage more people to do what I said, others that worked with my parents do every day and love every day and make a huge impact every day through service. I mean, that's all she said, everything I was gonna say, except that two quick things. One is that we got to meet so many incredible people as well and they really encouraged us to come and meet. Like Mark Diabals become a really great friend. He wrote us an email this morning to tell us that he got this job because he wanted us to know before it was released and we've gotten to travel with him and I've gotten to go to Ethiopia with him and we fought over who he loved more, me or Barbara. But after our five days in Ethiopia with the Care Foundation, he chose me. And so I think being able to be exposed to somebody like Mark Diabal who's really changed the landscape of our world, I mean, that's so incredible. And Wendy Kopp, I'm a teacher. And to be able to meet this woman as I'm teaching in inner city DC, it doesn't even really kick in until now and to be able now with journalism to interview people like Mary Fisher who told me that Betty Ford was the most inspirational person in her life and I just interviewed her last week. And so I think for my parents, first of all, their friends are so important, but people, they wanna surround themselves with interesting people and have taught us that. And so I think we try to know all of these people as much as we possibly could and still stay in contact with them. Now I would like for each of you and we're gonna start with Linda to tell us just one of your favorite stories about something that happened at the White House. It can be funny, it can be about you, it can be about your parents. Just some behind the scenes thing that the press never found out about and now they are because this is gonna be on C-SPAN, but you know. You know, something that everybody out here expires, something that everybody out here will say, wow, I've never heard that before. Gosh, I've been doing this for so long, I think I've told everything that I ever did. But anyway, one of the wonderful things about being in the White House is the people you meet and people in the theater, people in the arts, all sorts of fancy folks. And for instance, like Gregory Peck. And when Chuck was governor, we invited the Pecks to come and spend the night in the governor's mansion because they were doing something in Virginia. And I wouldn't have dared do that if I hadn't met him back in the 60s. And so when I called and told him who I was, they would remember, you know. So anyway, one day, this was president's day, Carl Sandberg came to the White House for a tea on Lincoln's birthday. And so we had this tea party in the Lincoln bedroom. And my mother was very, very excited and very impressed. And I was studying American history, so I immediately went and got my textbook and brought it in and asked him if he would sign, you know, fog or some poem of his and take it back to school, of course, and hopefully get an A in the course. But anyway, mother in the Lincoln bedroom, at least in our day, and I hope that y'all didn't change it. You know, that's one thing about being there. We all, I can't speak for anybody else, but at least we thought it was our house. And any changes that were made, where did they put that portrait that we put over there? That kind of thing. So anyway, we went in there and on the desk is a copy of the Gettysburg Address. And this was written out by Abraham Lincoln to benefit and be sold. You know, even then they were doing those things or they sold autographs. And this was going to be sold to benefit the Baltimore Sanitary Fair, which was an early Red Cross type of project. And so mother brought it over and said to Mr. Sandberg, and here is one of the five copies of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's own handwriting, to which Mr. Sandberg said, everybody knew he could write. Steve? God, there's a lot of stories I could tell and some of them I shouldn't tell, but. I don't know, we have time. Well, quickly, I'll give you two quick ones. First one, it was seven, eight days before we got to move in the White House. So when we finally moved in, the first night I was there, I called my best friend from high school, grade school, elementary school, Kevin Kennedy. And I said, Kevin, you gotta come over here. This is unbelievable. Good government housing and all those kind of things. And we took, and you couldn't do this today because it's much different because of terrorism and what goes on in the world. But at that time, we carried my two 18-year-old kids, carried my stereo up to the roof of the White House, up through the solarium. Today they've got guys up there dressed in black and anti-aircraft guns. You couldn't do this today, but we took my stereo up there, sat on the roof of the White House. I think we were playing like Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. It literally was like dumb and dumber on the roof of the White House. So that was my first night there. The first dinner, and I'll be quick here, the first dinner we had as a family, and there's this tension. I don't know if you guys notice that when you first go there, you don't know the staff. They've been there for years and you kind of rotate through. And so you're trying to get to know each other and everybody's a little formal and so we're sitting at the family dinner table. It's myself, dad, mom, my sister, Susan, and everybody's a little trying to figure it out and my dad trying to sort of take the edge off of it. He looks and sees there's a wonderful fireplace in that room and he says, oh gosh, when we used to go to Vale, Colorado for Christmas, we always loved to have a fire and one of the people that worked there must be the president telling us to light the fire. So they went over and they lit the fire. It hadn't been used in 10 years. Now smoke is billowing out. This is your first dinner with the staff and the smoke is coming back into that dining room and Susan and I are coughing and we're trying to get up and I'll never forget my dad looked at me and he says, sit back down. And he goes, Betty, don't we just love the fire? He had such a good heart to try to make him feel good. It was, yeah, it was just, those are my memories of those first days, yeah. Well, the thing happened on Lucy's first night in the White House. She had a friend over and started the fire in her bedroom. And smoke went everywhere. Her little friend said, oh yes, I know all about how to work to open everything. This'll be just great. No. And the added part was she was in her nightgown and she was 16 years old and all of a sudden the smoke is everywhere and so she goes and climbs up on her desk to stand up and try to open that window that faces Pennsylvania Avenue. And this guard looks up, sees the smoke coming out and then Lucy's trying to cover up. They ought to put a sign up. Do not use, you know, danger to old house. Yeah, I don't think we ever had a fire. No, I don't think we had a fire. I mean, I'm glad because, you know, that would be the last thing that the Bush twins could have done is like light the White House on fire. That would have really helped with our college reputation, you know? I think, well, one thing is you can still get up on that roof because I had my first kiss with my husband up there, which my mom does, it's kind of embarrassing. Luckily, I'm married to him. Barbara's embarrassed too. I feel very awkward. She's humiliated. I thought you said, I thought we were telling all of our secrets. Wait, you know what? We're telling, ignore these people out. Yeah, we're telling. You're just talking to me, Jenna. Okay, yeah. One thing, you know, we actually grew up because of going, when my grandfather was president, just for holidays, we knew all the staff really, really well. Yeah, you would have known, that's right. Which was so extra special, you know, because then going back, however many years later, a lot of years later, and they were, and many of them were still there, most of them. Yeah, that's right, that's right. And so leaving, I think that was the hardest part is that they had become like family to us after eight, you know, after 12 years. And we still stay in contact with them. And I'm going back to the White House to interview Mrs. Obama on Monday. And I'm really excited, because I get to, you know, mainly because I get to see them. See some of the old staff, yeah. And my mom, I mean, and to interview Mrs. Obama too, of course, but my mom said, I heard you're going to do that because the florist had called somebody who'd called somebody and it had gotten back to them. So, you know, they had become like family. And they actually helped us out when we saw Ghost once. You were going to bring that up. I'm going to let you tell it. Okay, before Bobby tells his story, I do have another twin story from your grandmother. Is it a true story? It was in her book. Will you tell us, but it's apparently, that apparently they're the 41s first time in the White House. I don't know if it was the nine of the inaugural balls or the next time, I'm not sure. But it was supposed to be a family dinner. And Barbara Bush noticed that a lot of the grandchildren were missing, led by the twins. She swears this is true. And so she said to the White House staff, where are the twins and the grandchildren? And one of the butlers says, oh, ma'am, they have ordered dinner in the bowling alley to be served in the bowling alley. That's not true, it was a snack. Did you? It wasn't a whole dinner, it was just some cookies. And I do believe there was never dinner served in the bowling alley ever again. No, no, no. Okay, fine. It was just easier to blame us for more things because there were two of us. That's right. And we took it. So I don't, should I tell this? Yeah, see how the girls were. This sounds crazy, except it happened. Jenna and I, well, Jenna, our rooms were next door to each other and since we're twins, we actually usually sleep in the same room even though we were adults. But Jenna came running into my room one night, terrified, because she had heard someone singing opera. Out of my fireplace. Out of her fireplace. It actually was Led Zeppelin. And I didn't believe her, I ignored her, but then the next night we were sleeping in the same room and it happened again, except this time we heard like olden times, like really creepy piano music coming out of the fireplace. And so we went to, we were able to go to sleep because we both were working in DC so we had jobs in the morning and we were able to go to sleep to say, oh, that's just Willard, our cat. We thought our cat might have played perfectly piano. We're not playing a nascent piano. But we had to sleep so we just pacified ourselves and then the next morning I was getting up to go to work and I saw Buddy who works at the White House. And I said, Buddy, well, first of all, the piano top was down, which really scared me a little bit. And I said, Buddy, you're not gonna believe, the last two nights I heard this piano music coming out of the fireplace in my room and was the piano top down last night? He's like, oh, it's always down. And he said, you wouldn't believe the things I've seen or heard. And we never slept alone ever. No, then we slept alone for the rest of the time. So we really, I mean, we believe in ghost. I mean, we wouldn't believe in ghost except this happened to us. Except for we believe in ghost. And we had a, and mom and dad had a golden retriever that lived at the White House with him, a dog named Liberty. And one night the dog got up in the middle of the night and woke dad up, nudged him, and dad got out of bed, left mom sitting there and he put his bathrobe on and his slippers and he took Liberty down the family elevator down to go out the diplomatic entrance to take the dog. It was like two in the morning. And he goes out the door, the dog runs around, does his business on the yard and dad goes to walk back in the White House and the door is locked. Wow. And the secret service don't know he's out there. Two in the morning in his pajamas with the dog. And so to let you know that our life is just like yours, here is dad knocking on the door in his pajamas with the dog, trying to get back in the White House with two in the morning. Did he ever get in? He got in, yeah. He got in. Obviously. The same thing happened to my mother. Little different. You know the grand staircase that you come down, well mother was always trying to make sure that we didn't spend any more money than we needed to in the White House. So one night after a state dinner she had gone back upstairs, put on her nightgown and she noticed that the light was on right outside the door to go down the grand staircase. And so she, being very careful, put one foot on to hold the door upstairs and then tried to lean out and turn the light out. Well, she didn't make it. The door closed behind her and there she was in her robe. And she just put her face up. She describes this, so I'm not telling too much, but she just marched downstairs like she was supposed to be walking around in her robe and they were all finishing the party up and she just walked right through with the elevator and went back upstairs again. He just. Now, unfortunately I'm getting the evil eye from Mark Up to Grove. I know we could listen to your old stories forever. Thank you all so much for telling us. It's so odd as y'all were fabulous.