family.
“Mrs. Bush was pretty fierce about competition,” recalled Jack Greenway, one of George’s Andover classmates. “I think that competing with her was a rite of passage within the family . . . When it came Nancy’s turn to play her [in tennis], they played so many sets at Round Hill Club in Greenwich that Mrs. Bush was taken directly to the hospital in Greenwich to be rehydrated.”
More than fifty years later George recalled his mother’s combative style. “I can vividly remember the bottom of my mother’s feet. Yes, she played a much younger woman named Peaches Peltz in tennis back in 1935 or so. Peaches was smooth. Mum was tenacious. Mother literally wore the skin off the bottom of her feet.”
The family enjoys telling the story of Dotty nine months into her first pregnancy and playing baseball at Kennebunkport. “Her last time up she hit a home run,” said George, “and without missing a base (I’m told) continued right off the field to the hospital to deliver Pres.”
“I had to decide early on as a daughter-in-law that you can’t beat her, you have to sit back and enjoy her,” said George’s wife, Barbara Bush. “When I was a new bride, she beat me in paddle tennis with her right hand, then with her left.”
Even in her seventies, Dotty kept up her strenuous pace. “I remember playing gin rummy with her in Greenwich when she was recuperating from a broken leg,” recalled a close family friend. “She told me she suffered a fracture during the U.S. Open. Her family was watching on television, but it was a gorgeous day and she wanted to go for a walk. She couldn’t get anyone to budge from the TV. So she went out by herself. She tripped and fell while climbing over a branch and broke her leg. She lay in the leaves for a couple of hours, unable to move, until a little boy came along on his bicycle. He said, ‘Mrs. Bush, what are you doing lying on the ground?’ She told him what had happened, and he offered to go get her family. She said, ‘Oh, no. They would be very, very angry if you did that because they’re watching the U.S. Open.’ God forbid we should disturb anyone watching sports.”
Jonathan Bush recalled the day his mother offered five dollars to any of her sons who could beat her at tennis. George, who was sixteen at the time, accepted the challenge. The children rooted for George.
“Everyone wanted him to win, and he finally did. She was at the top of her form. It was a brutal match, both of them wringing wet when they finished.”
Dotty set up intrafamily competitions and graded everyone on his or her excellence in swimming, tennis, touch football, knee football, softball, tiddledywinks, checkers, fishing, golf, and indoor putting. She even set up a Ping-Pong table in the foyer of the Greenwich home, and anyone who passed through the front door was challenged.
Sports became a metaphor of life for Dotty, who judged people’s characters by how they played tennis. “She had some good shots” meant she was a terrible player and a mediocre person. “He can’t keep score” meant he’ll never amount to much in life. “He plays the net” was high praise and marked a man for success.
Her sons, who competed for her attention, absorbed these judgments and pushed themselves to please her. She challenged them constantly—swimming matches, footraces, bridge games—and played to win at everything, never holding back.
“She loved games and thought that competition taught courage, fair play, and—I think most importantly—teamwork,” said George Bush. “She taught games to us endlessly.”
The “fair play” part of competition was not always observed by the children. Sometimes their desire to win trumped good sportsmanship, especially in George, who never outgrew his need to triumph, whether to please his mother or impress his father. “I hate losing,” he said. “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
During their childhood summers at
“Mrs. Bush was pretty fierce about competition,” recalled Jack Greenway, one of George’s Andover classmates. “I think that competing with her was a rite of passage within the family . . . When it came Nancy’s turn to play her [in tennis], they played so many sets at Round Hill Club in Greenwich that Mrs. Bush was taken directly to the hospital in Greenwich to be rehydrated.”
More than fifty years later George recalled his mother’s combative style. “I can vividly remember the bottom of my mother’s feet. Yes, she played a much younger woman named Peaches Peltz in tennis back in 1935 or so. Peaches was smooth. Mum was tenacious. Mother literally wore the skin off the bottom of her feet.”
The family enjoys telling the story of Dotty nine months into her first pregnancy and playing baseball at Kennebunkport. “Her last time up she hit a home run,” said George, “and without missing a base (I’m told) continued right off the field to the hospital to deliver Pres.”
“I had to decide early on as a daughter-in-law that you can’t beat her, you have to sit back and enjoy her,” said George’s wife, Barbara Bush. “When I was a new bride, she beat me in paddle tennis with her right hand, then with her left.”
Even in her seventies, Dotty kept up her strenuous pace. “I remember playing gin rummy with her in Greenwich when she was recuperating from a broken leg,” recalled a close family friend. “She told me she suffered a fracture during the U.S. Open. Her family was watching on television, but it was a gorgeous day and she wanted to go for a walk. She couldn’t get anyone to budge from the TV. So she went out by herself. She tripped and fell while climbing over a branch and broke her leg. She lay in the leaves for a couple of hours, unable to move, until a little boy came along on his bicycle. He said, ‘Mrs. Bush, what are you doing lying on the ground?’ She told him what had happened, and he offered to go get her family. She said, ‘Oh, no. They would be very, very angry if you did that because they’re watching the U.S. Open.’ God forbid we should disturb anyone watching sports.”
Jonathan Bush recalled the day his mother offered five dollars to any of her sons who could beat her at tennis. George, who was sixteen at the time, accepted the challenge. The children rooted for George.
“Everyone wanted him to win, and he finally did. She was at the top of her form. It was a brutal match, both of them wringing wet when they finished.”
Dotty set up intrafamily competitions and graded everyone on his or her excellence in swimming, tennis, touch football, knee football, softball, tiddledywinks, checkers, fishing, golf, and indoor putting. She even set up a Ping-Pong table in the foyer of the Greenwich home, and anyone who passed through the front door was challenged.
Sports became a metaphor of life for Dotty, who judged people’s characters by how they played tennis. “She had some good shots” meant she was a terrible player and a mediocre person. “He can’t keep score” meant he’ll never amount to much in life. “He plays the net” was high praise and marked a man for success.
Her sons, who competed for her attention, absorbed these judgments and pushed themselves to please her. She challenged them constantly—swimming matches, footraces, bridge games—and played to win at everything, never holding back.
“She loved games and thought that competition taught courage, fair play, and—I think most importantly—teamwork,” said George Bush. “She taught games to us endlessly.”
The “fair play” part of competition was not always observed by the children. Sometimes their desire to win trumped good sportsmanship, especially in George, who never outgrew his need to triumph, whether to please his mother or impress his father. “I hate losing,” he said. “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
During their childhood summers at
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