First lady Michelle Obama and representatives from nine former presidential families led a bipartisan gathering of politicians and celebrities in paying memorial tribute to Nancy Reagan, whose love for her late husband, former US president Ronald Reagan, was hailed as a romance “for the ages.”
In an invitation-only funeral for about 1,000 guests at her husband’s presidential library in Southern California, the onetime Hollywood actress-turned-first-lady was remembered for the fierce devotion she accorded her spouse during their White House years and his long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Theirs was a love story for the ages,” former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney said of the couple, during a service that organizers say Nancy Reagan herself helped plan in advance. “They had style, they had grace and they had class.”
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Former White House chief of staff James Baker called Nancy Reagan the “consummate political wife and first lady,” and a figure whose support, encouragement and political savvy were indispensable to her husband’s political success.
After her husband’s death at age 93 in 2004, she “dedicated herself to his memory and his place in history,” Baker said.
The funeral brought together prominent Republicans and Democrats alike in salute of a woman especially admired by political conservatives at a time when deep partisan rancor has reverberated through Washington and this year’s presidential campaign.
She was to the president, Baker recalled, “absolutely without a doubt his closest adviser,” adding she was particularly adept at knowing who was truly loyal to her spouse and who was not.
He credited Nancy Reagan with prodding her husband to open a dialogue with then-Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, a relationship that helped ease Cold War tensions.
Nancy Reagan, who died on Sunday of congestive heart failure at age 94, was to be buried beside her husband later on Friday, though no family members planned to attend, having already “said their goodbyes,” according to library spokeswoman Melissa Giller.
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