Remembering Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush

As the country celebrates the life of Barbara Bush, we also remember her daughter, Robin, who in 1953 was diagnosed with leukemia when she was three years old. At the time, cancer was a taboo subject and most people had never heard of the word leukemia. The Bush’s had taken their daughter to the hospital for tests because she was complaining of fatigue.  Three days later she was released with the prescription to take Robin home to die.

Like any parent whose child receives such a diagnosis, they refused to accept it and did everything in their power to find help for their beloved Robin. The day after her diagnosis the family flew to New York and the Bush’s moved into an apartment on Manhattan’s East Side. Robin was promptly admitted to Sloan Kettering, the leading cancer center at the time.

Robin lived in the hospital for seven months undergoing regular blood transfusions and bone marrow testing. Barbara stayed at her side forever determined and hopeful. The pictures of Robin’s brothers, George and Jeb, were taped to the headboard of Robin’s bed. Robin was able to make a quick trip back to Maine to visit her brothers before returning to her hospital room where she succumbed to her disease with her parents at her side.

Barbara and George donated Robin’s tiny body to research, in the hope answers might be found for this mysterious disease that took Robin from them and that other families might be spared the grief they now knew.  So few families have the knowledge that donating their child’s body/tissue is paramount to finding a cure.  That is why Swifty started the Post Mortem Tissue Donation program at the CBTTC.  To allow all families to have the option to help children in the future who will be diagnosed with cancer.  It is good for science, but more importantly it helps a family as they grieve their loss to know they are helping other families.  Just one more way the Bush family lived in service of others.

After her funeral, Barbara will be buried with her daughter Robin in a small, gated burial plot on the grounds of the George H.W. Bush library in College Station, Texas. Mother and daughter united again.