Several people noted the partnership between Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
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Over the next two days, Mrs. Reagan will lie in repose so the public can say farewell, then a private service on Friday will be attended by first ladies from Rosalind Carter to Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. Obama paid his respects to Scalia during a viewing before the service; rumors that he was busy trying to score early tickets to this year’s Coachella or Bonnaroo during the funeral itself remain merely hearsay as of now.
Eldridge said she most admired how Mrs. Reagan “stood by her man” and the “beautiful love that they had”. The casket was placed in a lobby behind a bronze statue of a smiling Ronald Reagan holding a cowboy hat. The public viewing was to continue for two days leading up to the funeral scheduled for Friday. His favorite film was, in which she costarred in with Ronald Reagan.
About 1,500 people had visited Nancy Reagan’s casket at a public viewing and more than 1,000 were still waiting to see her, but the setting as visitors stood before the casket was quiet and intimate.
Flowers lined the entrance to the Simi Valley compound on Wednesday morning, before the arrival of Reagan’s motorcade.
Ronald Reagan, the 40th United States president, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease after leaving office and went into a long decline, cared for by his wife until his death in 2004.
“He wouldn’t have been anything without her by his side”, Blatt said.
James A. Baker, who served in President Reagan’s administration, and former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw also will give remarks during the private ceremony officiated by the Rev. Stuart Kenworthy, vicar of Washington National Cathedral.
Each person who passes by the former first lady’s casket departs with a card that says, “With gratitude for your expression of sympathy in honoring the life of Nancy Davis Reagan”.
The public will be allowed to view the casket between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time on Thursday.
Attendees included the children of Ronald Reagan’s son Michael and Dennis Revell, the widower of the president’s late daughter Maureen.
When the private service ended, House Speaker Paul Ryan bowed his head at the casket, made the sign of the cross and clasped his hands in prayer for about a minute.
Nancy Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, has arrived for a brief service at a Santa Monica, California, mortuary before a motorcade takes her mother’s casket to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
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