sweet, and patient woman, always made me feel welcome. Her dad loved sports and enjoyed putting down a wager or two on football. His hangout was Johnny’s Barbecue. The locals called it the Sick Pig because of the awful wooden pig on top of the restaurant. One day Laura’s dad introduced me to his friends at the Sick Pig, including Johnny himself. I think I passed muster, because I was offered a screwdriver. I turned it down. It was nine o’clock in the morning.
The courtship moved fast. One weekend Laura and I took a trip to Anne and Tobin Armstrong’s ranch in South Texas. Anne was a former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and she and Tobin had invited Prince Charles to play polo. Another weekend we visited John and Angie Newcombe at his tennis academy in New Braunfels, in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. This time I kept my hands on the beer mug and off the steering wheel. I was falling hard for Laura. I was not much of a cat person, but I knew our relationship was solid when I bonded with her black-and-white shorthair, Dewey, named for the decimal system.
I’ve never been afraid to make a decision, and in late September I made a big one. One night in Laura’s small Austin rental house, I said, “Let’s get married.” She said yes right away. Ours had been a whirlwind romance, but we were ready to commit.
Soon after the engagement, Laura and I traveled to Houston, where Jeb and Columba were celebrating the christening of their daughter, Noelle. I introduced Laura to the family. They were as smitten with her as I had been. Laura knew she would be joining a large, competitive family, and that suited her just fine. As an only child, she got a kick out of the boisterous Bush clan.
Our parents checked their schedules, and we picked the first Saturday available, November 5, 1977. We had a small wedding with family and close friends in Midland. The invitations were handwritten by Laura’s mom. We had no ushers, no bridesmaids, and no groomsmen. It was just me, Laura, and her dad to walk her down the aisle.
On our wedding day.
While I couldn’t pinpoint it at the time, I believe there is a reason Laura and I never met all those years before. God brought her into my life at just the right time, when I was ready to settle down and was open to having a partner at my side. Thankfully, I had the good sense to recognize it. It was the best decision of my life.
Shortly after we got married, Laura and I decided to have children. After a couple of years of trying, it was not happening as easily as we had hoped. We discussed, reflected, prayed, and made the decision to adopt. At first I was uneasy about parenting someone else’s child. But the more I looked into adoption, the more comfortable I became. We had friends who had adopted and loved their children as a precious blessing. And we were fortunate to know about a wonderful agency called the Edna Gladney Home in Fort Worth.
Founded by a Methodist missionary in 1887, Gladney had become one of the premier adoption homes in the world. Laura and I were introduced by phone to the longtime director, Ruby Lee Piester. She invited us to tour the hospital, where we met some of the pregnant women who were near term. I was touched by their selfless decision to bring their children into the world and give them to couples like us.
The application process took several months. First, there was the initial interview, which included a lengthy questionnaire. Fortunately, we passed. In the next stage, Gladney planned to send a representative for a home visit. Laura and I were preparing meticulously. Then, in early 1981, she stunned me with the news that she thought she was pregnant.
Some weeks later we scheduled a trip to a sonogram expert in Houston, a lovely Indian American woman named Srini Malini. I was nervous as she guided the device over Laura’s body. She looked at the video monitor and said, “Here is the head, and here is the body. It’s a girl!” She moved to get a better angle. Suddenly she shouted, “I see two babies, two beautiful babies! This one is a girl as well. You are going to be the parents of twins.” My eyes filled with tears. It was a double blessing. I started calling the sonogram image our first family photo.
When we called the Gladney director to deliver the news, we felt strangely guilty, as if we had been leading her on. She told Laura something so sweet: “Honey, this happens sometimes. Gladney can help a couple have a child one way or another.” Ruby Lee was more right than she knew. On the original questionnaire, Laura had checked the box saying we would prefer to adopt twins.
The doctors had warned us that twins can be a high-risk pregnancy. Laura refused to decorate the nursery out of superstition. About seven months into the pregnancy, Laura was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a serious condition that could damage her kidneys and jeopardize the health of the girls. The day after we received this news, Laura checked into Baylor Hospital in Dallas, where her uncle was a surgeon. The doctors told Laura that she should begin bed rest.
I knew Laura had the best possible care, but I was worried. I remembered Mother’s miscarriage. I had seen my parents after Robin died. I knew how much it hurt to lose a child. I confessed my anxiety to Laura. I’ll never forget her reaction. She looked at me with her blue eyes and said, “George, I am going to bring these girls into the world. They will be born healthy.” I marveled at my wife’s strength. This quiet, unassuming woman was one tough soul.
Two weeks later, I was in my office in Midland—I had been shuttling back and forth to Dallas—when I got a call from Dr. James Boyd. He was in charge of Laura’s care, and he was not big on chitchat. “George,” he said, “you are having your children tomorrow. I will deliver them at six in the morning.” I asked about Laura’s health. He said she would be okay. “What about the girls?” He said, “They will be five weeks premature. They will be fine. But the time to move is now.” I called Laura to tell her how thrilled I was. Then I called her parents in Midland, my parents in Washington, a bunch of our friends—and, of course, the airlines.
I’ve been to some exciting events in my life—presidential inaugurations, speeches in front of huge crowds, throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium—but there was nothing like the moment those girls were born. Laura was in bed and sedated. I stroked her head. Before long, the doctor held up a tiny red body. The baby screamed, and the doctor proclaimed her healthy. A nurse cleaned her and gave her to me. Little Barbara. And then the same for Jenna. We wanted our girls to carry the names of two fine women, so we named them after our mothers.
Barbara Bush and Jenna Welch holding their namesakes.
I had thought about those girls for so long that I could barely believe they were in my arms. It was the day before Thanksgiving 1981. And thankful is exactly how I felt. I was thankful to God for their lives, thankful to the skilled medical team for their excellent care, and thankful to Laura for her determination to carry our girls long enough that they could be born healthy.
Holding Barbara and Jenna for the first time was a moment of incredible clarity. I had been given a blessing and a responsibility. I vowed to be the best father I could possibly be.
One relieved and happy dad.
Those early months provided a wakeup call. The girls would cry in the middle of the night. I would pick them up, one in each arm, and walk around the house. I wanted to sing them a lullaby, but I didn’t really know any. Instead, I usually went with the Yale fight song “Bulldog Bulldog, Bow Wow Wow.” That would calm them down, maybe just because they didn’t want to hear me sing anymore. Whatever the reason, it worked. I would lay them in their cribs and go back to Laura as one happy dad.
As Laura and I were adjusting to life with our new family, I was running a new business. In 1979, I started a small energy exploration company in Midland. I raised money, mostly from the East Coast, to finance drilling in low- risk, low-return oil and gas wells. I made some respectable finds, including some that are still producing. I also drilled my fair share of dry holes. Running a small business taught me a lot, especially that market conditions can change quickly, so you’d better be prepared for the unexpected.
As oil prices softened in 1983, I decided to merge my operations with two entrepreneurs from Cincinnati, Bill DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. I would be the eyes and ears on the ground in Texas, and they would raise funds back east. The business did well for a couple of years, and we became close friends. But in early 1986, the price of oil plummeted from twenty-six dollars to ten dollars a barrel. A lot of people I knew had borrowed heavily and were now in dire financial jeopardy. Fortunately, we had kept our debt low, and we were able to merge our business into a larger publicly traded company, Harken Energy.
The mid-1980s were gloomy years in Midland. There was a sense of anxiety, and many were searching for purpose. Religion had always been part of my life, but I really wasn’t a believer. I was baptized in Yale’s
