President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama say Nancy Reagan redefined the role of serving as first lady and they are fortunate to have benefited from her “proud example”.
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Which is why she was so widely and rightly admired. RIP.
Mrs. Reagan, who served as first lady from 1981-1989 while her husband Ronald Reagan assumed office as the 40th President of the United States, was known as a political force and a woman of grace. “We join all Americans in extending our prayers and condolences to her beloved children and her entire family during this hard time”.
Her husband, Ronald Reagan, was heavily criticised for not mentioning the word AIDS until 1987, after many thousands had died from complications related to the disease.
“Nancy Reagan was one of my heroes”, said former California GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) – Mourners remembering former US first lady Nancy Reagan have left a growing display of flowers and flags at the main entrance of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California.
Nancy Reagan was willing to push against many Republicans’ opposition to embryonic stem cell research, advocating for further studies she said could help lead to a cure for Alzheimer’s.
“I just remember this lady dressed in red doing a number of things that usually, it just never occurred to me that a First Lady could actually hug someone”, he said. “George and I send our prayers and condolences to her family”.
He was just ten years old at the time.
The second wife of President Reagan (his first being the singer/actress Jane Wyman), Nancy Reagan married him on March 4, 1952. “She was always thoughtful and elegant and devoted to her husband and to our country”.
Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination, from businessman Donald Trump to U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, also conveyed their sympathies.
“Hillary [Clinton] and I were deeply saddened to learn of Nancy Reagan’s passing”, Bill Clinton said in a statement.
Nancy Reagan ran the two-term Reagan White House with a strict hand, and had her detractors and admirers. Mrs. Reagan was, in many ways, the driving force behind President Reagan and many of his achievements.
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Finally, in 1994, the couple disclosed that Ronald Reagan had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
