Long seen as the pillar of one of America’s most prominent families, as wife to the 41st US president and mother to the 43rd, Barbara Bush died Tuesday at her home in Texas aged 92, surrounded by her family. “I always knew Barbara as the most beloved woman in the world,” he wrote in a statement. Known for her trademark faux pearls and tart-tongued comments about life in and out of Washington — but also her deep loyalty to family and self-deprecating humor — Barbara Bush was in many ways a figure more popular among ordinary Americans than her high-flying husband and sons.
