George H.W. Bush to be laid to rest at presidential library in Houston

George H.W. Bush to be laid to rest at presidential library in Houston
UPI

Dec. 6 (UPI) — Former President George H.W. Bush will be interred in east Texas Thursday in an invitation-only ceremony, a day after being honored at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Bush’s body laid in repose from Wednesday evening to early Thursday morning at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, where thousands paid respect to him before a second private funeral service for the 41st president.

Bush’s grandson, George P. Bush, and former Secretary of State James Baker Houston will eulogize the former president at the funeral service for about 1,200 guests. It will begin at 10 a.m. CST Thursday.

The younger Bush, the Texas land commissioner, told KXAS-TV he’s “overwhelmed with emotion” at the opportunity to speak about the former president he knew as “Gampy,” adding he would speak from the heart about the man more than the political figure.

“So much has been said about his public career and what he’s given to his country and state. I am just going to talk about the man,” he said. “I had a chance to visit with him twice in the last month before his passing and had a chance to say my last goodbyes. I talked with him the night of his passing and it’s going to hurt, just like anybody else who’s lost a loved one, it takes time to overcome but I know that in time it will get easier.”

Baker, White House chief of staff under Bush and Ronald Reagan and secretary of state from 1989 to 1992, said in an op-ed in The Washington Post — writing with Bush’s son and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — the former president helped pull him “out of despair” after the death of his first wife.

“As a friend, George H.W. Bush was without peer, always there in good times and bad,” they wrote. “He routinely quoted the verse of William Butler Yeats: ‘Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.’ Those words were more than poetry to him. They were a way of life.”

After the service, Bush’s casket will be transported to the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station in a Union Pacific train painted in the colors of the Air Force One and adorned with the number “4141.”

The rail car carrying Bush’s casket will be equipped with glass on both sides to allow mourners to see as it passes by. After arriving at College Station at 3:45 p.m., a motorcade will transport Bush to his final resting place. The Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets will form a cordon on Barbara Bush Drive to honor Bush as he arrives.

Bush will be buried at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, next to wife Barbara Bush, who died in April, and daughter Robin, who died of leukemia in 1953 at the age of 4.

The interment ceremony is set to begin at 4:15 p.m. and will feature a U.S. Navy 21-strike fighter aircraft flyover in the “missing man” formation, with the aircraft flying over the presidential library from north to south.

There will be a 21-gun salute during the committal service, and the firing party will fire three volleys as the bugler sounds the Taps call to close out the ceremony.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.