Jeb Bush Remembers His Mother: 'She Taught Us To Serve Others'
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Less than a day after former First Lady Barbara Bush died, her son and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush kept his promise to Elmhurst College, speaking at a forum in west suburban Oak Park.
Jeb Bush spent more than an hour on stage, much of it talking about his mother's legacy, fondly remembering the woman he called mom.
"She taught us to serve others. She taught us to be civil. She taught us to love your family with your heart and soul; and she and my dad didn't have to tell us how to do that, they just acted on their love for 75 years" he said.
Even with Barbara Bush's death the night before the forum, organizers had no doubt her son would show up to be the keynote speaker.
"He had talked to his mother, and his mother was the kind of person that if you broke an obligation, you were in real trouble," said former Illinois House Speaker Lee Daniels, now a special assistant to the president of Elmhurst College.
Those in attendance remembered Barbara Bush as a classy woman with a backbone of steel, whose own kids called her "The Enforcer."
"Her sweetness always carried through the toughness, but they're both there and they go together," said Regional Transportation Authority chairman Kirk Dillard, a former Illinois state senator.
Mrs. Bush was a woman who experienced bi-partisan love, even if her husband and sons did not.
"They come up to you and they go, 'I love your mother,' and that was always code for, 'I'm a Democrat. I can't stand you, your brother, your dad, but I love your mother,'" Jeb Bush told the audience at the forum. "My mom's kind of support was universal for sure. The rest of us were struggling."
The former Florida governor talked extensively about how his 93-year-old father, former President George H.W. Bush, is coping with Barbara's death.
"Today, he's probably really struggling. He held my mom's hand all day long yesterday. She passed in the early evening. I called him, and he said, 'I'm kind of cry baby right now. I'm not feeling very good.' He's physically better than he was a month ago, and he's in and out mentally, but he's surrounded by family love for sure," Jeb Bush said. "We'll be praying for him, and hanging out with him, and giving him the kind of love he always gave us."
Jeb Bush also said having a mother like Barbara Bush was like winning the lottery.
Regarding the lack of civility in modern politics, he said if he talked like some politicians he hears on TV, his mother would have whipped his butt, which she said she occasionally did anyway.
