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Obamas, Clintons, Melania Trump to Attend Barbara Bush's Funeral

Funeral services for Barbara Bush are planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston

A private funeral for Barbara Bush will be held Saturday at the Houston, Texas, church she and former President George H.W. Bush regularly attended.

Bush, the wife of the 41st president, George H.W. Bush, and mother of the 43rd, George W. Bush, died on Tuesday at the age of 92.

According to a post on the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation website, Barbara Bush will lie in repose from noon to midnight Friday at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church for members of the public wishing to pay respects. Visitors must first go the Second Baptist Church campus to park and go through security. Shuttle services will be provided to and from St. Martin's Church.

The funeral services Saturday at 11 a.m. is by invitation only. After the funeral, Bush will be buried on the ground of the Bush library at Texas A&M University in College Station, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northwest of Houston. The couple's daughter, Robin, who died of leukemia at the age of 3 in 1953, also is buried at the site.

Among the dignitaries planning to attend Saturday's funeral in Houston are former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama will accompany their husbands. 

Bill Clinton dashed Mrs. Bush's husband's re-election hopes en route to winning the 1992 election. Clinton since grew close to former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara, and would visit them at their summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. Clinton often joked he spent so much time with the Bushes that he'd become like a member of the family.

First lady Melania Trump will also attend the funeral, her office said on Wednesday. The White House has not yet said whether President Donald Trump will attend, but the flags at Mar-a-Lago and Trump International have been lowered to half-staff in honor of the former first lady.

While it is customary for former and current first ladies to attend the funerals of their predecessors, presidents rarely do, according to NBC News. President Barack did not attend Nancy Reagan's funeral in 2016. And when Betty Ford died in 2011, neither Obama nor former President Clinton attended her funeral. 

In fact, the last time a sitting president attended the funeral services of a former first lady was in 1962, when then-President John F. Kennedy attended Eleanor Roosevelt's funeral.   

It was not immediately clear if President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, would attend Bush's funeral.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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