Wednesday marks a National Day of Mourning in honor of the 41st President, George Herbert Walker Bush who died Friday at the age of 94. A Funeral Service will begin at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley takes us inside what is known as the "Morning Room" created in 1901 at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo.
“An actually this room, which we refer to as the ‘Morning Room’ was where Theodore Roosevelt wrote his first proclamation to the nation,” said Stanton Hudson, executive director of Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site on Delaware Avenue.
Hudson sat on a velvet, Victorian couch in the Morning Room to remind us of the time Roosevelt spent inside the Wilcox Mansion where he took his oath of office after the assignation of President William McKinley while attending the Pam-American Exposition here in Buffalo.
“Like George H. W. Bush, Roosevelt was well prepared. He was a former commissioner of the city of New York, the police commissioner, he was the former assistance secretary of the Navy. He fought in the Spanish-American War, he served as an assemblyman in New York State Assembly and as our Governor here in New York State,” Hudson explained.
And at a time when our nation has been clearly divided by political controversy and hatred, Hudson tells WBFO News this 'Day of Mourning' is a perfect time for everyone to take a bipartisan lesson of President Bush's past leadership.
“In his inaugural address in ’89, he stated that ‘deeper successes that are made not of gold and silk but of better hearts and finer souls’, and then he added “America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world,’” Hudson read.
Hudson is hopeful President the ‘Day of Mourning’ will provide a historical lesson to the youth of our nation.
“And for our young people, in particular, led by example, public service was the norm for Bush. He held diplomatic posts at the United Nations and in China, along with leading the Republican National Committee and the CIA before he actually he took office as Vice President,” Hudson said.
Hudson tells us he’s hopeful President Trump will play attention to the legacy former President Bush.
Hudson also noted that no ‘sitting president’ has ever visited Buffalo’s TR Site.
“We keep trying,” Hudson noted. Responding that it certainly would be a goal “to have a sitting president, vice president, cabinet member to visit here.”