Relationships Talk

As Americans mourn the passing of a former First Lady and mother to another president, one Alabama woman is remembering the moment she got  wedding day advice from Barbara Bush.

Nannette Smith Sheaffer, a native of Pell City, now lives and works in Birmingham. Sheaffer met Bush on June 24, 1995, the same day she was getting married in Kennebunkport, Maine.

“She was exactly, and more, than I expected her to be,” Sheaffer said of Bush, who died Tuesday at the age of 92. “She was just delightful.”

Because of a family connection, Sheaffer spent summers working in Maine during her college years at the University of Alabama. An aunt and uncle who lived in Maine told her of a job at the Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport, the longtime home to the Bushes.

George H.W. Bush, vice president under Ronald Reagan, served one term as president from 1989 through 1993. Sheaffer said she met the president several times while working at the hotel, where Bush would occasionally come for a meal. Townsfolk were largely deferential to the Bushes, she said, and the president could occasionally be seen in his boat out on the water. Wave at him, and he might wave back, she said. Mrs. Bush, however, wasn’t seen out as much.

When not working, Sheaffer and other staffers at the hotel stayed in a dorm.

“Those were the most magnificent summers I have ever had,” she said. She resolved that, when she got married, the ceremony would have to take place at the Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport.

Fast forward to 1995. Sheaffer was getting married, and needed her hair done. It was early in the morning, with only the salon staff there. As she was getting her hair washed, several men came in, dressed in suits. They were Secret Service agents. Sheaffer she said was aware of something going on, but her view was only of the ceiling while her head was in the wash bowl.

Then, sitting down in the next seat, was Barbara Bush.

“I thought, ‘There’s Barbara Bush! It were her head in the bowl. I was totally aghast. This was really happening,” she said.

As it turned out, Bush would attend a family wedding that morning at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport. She thought Sheaffer might be there as well, as she was getting an “up do.”

“She asked me was I doing something special that day, and I responded by saying ‘I’m getting married today!” Sheaffer said. “That’s when she beamed. She was so pleasant. She just talked and talked.”

Bush, whose marriage to the former president lasted 73 years, had just celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary. Sheaffer said she gave “grandmotherly advice.”

“She said never go to bed angry, and don’t worry about what’s for dinner,” Sheaffer remembered. “I thought, that’s cute. I can’t imagine the last time she had to cook a meal.”

For about 20 minutes, the two chit-chatted, talking about the Colony Hotel. Then Sheaffer had to go.

“I’m divorced now, but she said, ‘I hope you have as long and happy a marriage as I’ve had,'” Sheaffer said. Then Bush hugged her and posed for a picture with her hairdresser.

“Honestly, I had my hair in an up-do. I had on one of my ratty old button down shirts. I was in kind of a hurry. I had no makeup on. I didn’t want to remember what I looked like for posterity,” she said. Later, when people asked what the highlight of her wedding day was, she would say it was meeting Barbara Bush.

Sheaffer said, with Bush’s passing, she thinks on the richness of her life, and the easy way she had of sharing it with others.

“To think somebody could live and could be that happy with someone for that long is amazing,” she said. “It’s sad, because it doesn’t happen often.”