Photo: Jenna Bush Hager/Instagram
Laura Bush‘s mother,Jenna Hawkins Welch, died Friday, two days before Mother’s Day. She was 99.
Bush announced Welch’s passing ina tender, grieving poston Instagram on Sunday.
Welch, she wrote, was “a true daughter of West Texas who loved her family, books, and nature. My memories of reading with her and stargazing under the Midland sky are reminders of the passions that she nurtured in me.”
Jenna Bush Hager, Bush’s daughter and Welch’s granddaughter,posted her own tributeto her “precious namesake” on Sunday.
“She read us poetry and taught us about every constellation in the sky. Her kindness and graciousness were as expansive as the West Texas horizon,” wrote Hager, 37, a co-host on theTodayshow.
According toWelch’s obituary in the localMidland Reporter-Telegram, the family held a funeral for her on Saturday. Further details of her passing were not available.
Instead of flowers, gifts may be made to the Midland County Public Library Foundation or the Jenna Welch Nature Study Center.
In Hager’s post this weekend, she shared several photos that appeared to be from Welch’s memorial service and of her joint headstone with her “great love,” husband Harold Bruce.
“So happy she’s reunited … after almost 25-years apart,” Hager wrote.
The family has suffered heartbreaks and joys in the last year: grandparentsBarbaraandGeorge H. W. Bushdied in April and November. In the fall, granddaughterBarbara Pierce BushwedCraig Coynein an intimate ceremonyat the family’s home in Maine; and, last month, Hager announcedshe was expecting her third child, a boy.
“How lucky I was to be named after a woman who taught me how to slow down and appreciate every bird, and every plant in West Texas,” Hager wrote on Sunday.
Jenna Hawkins Welch.Laura Bush/Instagram
Jenna Bush Hager/Instagram
RELATED VIDEO: Not Long Before Dying, Barbara Bush Opened Up About the Sweet Reason She Always Wore Keds
Welch’s obituary sharply sketches the many decades of her life:
After he spent two years overseas in Europe fighting in World War Two, the couple moved to Midland, where their only daughter was born.
Welch loved reading and loved nature and being outside, her obituary states.
Welch was “a knowledgeable, self-taught naturalist.” She took courses at Midland College, becoming something of an authority on the area: “She learned the name of every Midland wildflower and was an accomplished amateur birder.”
The stars, too, drew her fascination. With a “passion for astronomy,” Welch and her daughter, and later her granddaughters, would skywatch together.
“Our family is grateful for her long and wonderful life,” Bush wrote on Sunday. “We miss her dearly.”
source: people.com
