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First Lady Nancy Reagan and husband, Ronald
Nancy Davis Reagan. You perhaps know her best as, First Lady, wife of President Ronald Reagan the 40th President of the United States.
Nancy was not only known across America as the "First Lady", she was also known as the beautiful starlet that she was, as the famous actress in the mid 1940's. She began her acting career on a small stage in the Ramshackle Inn. She appeared in eleven motion pictures, her major films being; West Side, East Side, Donovan's Brain, and Night into Morning. She was paired romantically with, you guessed it, Ronald Reagan in "Hellcats of the Navy", a World War 2 submarine drama.
She first met Ronald in 1950, by an old family friend. He had been president of the Screen Actors Guild. Nancy had been receiving unwanted Communist material through the mail and had come to him about it.
It didn't take long before love's flame started to grow.
They were married two years later, on March 4, 1952.
Though Ronald loved his acting career, making over fifty movies, his real love, his ambition was in politics.
Six years later, Nancy gave up her acting career to raise a family and to support her husband in his pursuit of politics. Her devotion was deep. It was clear to everyone that she loved her husband.
Nancy loved beautiful things. Most dinners at the White House called for formal dress. Trumpeters were brought in to herald the presidential families arrival. Color guards announced their presence.
Nancy became known for the designer gowns that she wore to the White House social events that she loved.
Both she and Ronald never grew weary of the limelight, the publicity. They were in fact actors in their earlier careers.
When asked if she had ever given her husband advice, while serving at the White House, she responded, "For eight years, I was sleeping with the president, and if that doesn't give you special access, I don't know what does! So yes, I gave Ronnie my best advice whenever he asked for it, and sometimes when he didn't."
Ronald was devoted to his wife as well. Shortly after their first meeting, as they were getting to know each other, he began transcribing letters, cards, telegrams, daily to her! In fact, he continued this act of love through their marriage, through the birth of their children, and on until suddenly, the disease of Alzheimers crippled his ability to write. No doubt Nancy missed his letters, his words of love. Missed him calling her his special pet names- Darling, First Mommie, Nancy Pants, First Lady and her favorite, My Wife.
They had been through so much together. His challenges as a conservative politician, his service as the United States President. The chilling attempted assassination in 1981.
And through it all came the letters. In a book called, "I Love You, Ronnie" , his wife Nancy shares his love letters to her.
Here, we listen in on a love so secure, so deep as the couple bare their hearts to each other.
My Darling First Lady
I'm looking at you as you lie here beside me on this fifteenth anniversary and wondering why everyone has only just discovered you are the First Lady.
You've been the First -- in fact the only -- to me for fifteen years.
That sounds so strange -- ''fifteen years.'' It still seems like minutes they've gone by so swiftly. If I have any regret it is only for the days we've been apart and I've had to awaken without watching you. Someday, you'll have to explain how you can be five years old when you sleep and for fifteen years yet.
But then maybe it has something to do with my only being fifteen -- because I wasn't living before I began watching you.
Thank you for all my life and living and for happiness as complete as one can have on this earth.
I love you so much and so much more each day.
Your husband
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My darling husband,
You beat me to it this morning 'cause I was going to write you --
I can never say what I really feel in my heart to you 'cause I get puddled up -- and you always say everything so much better. But I too can't believe it's fifteen (16!) years. In another way tho' it seems like forever -- I really can't even remember a life before you now. Everything began with you. My whole life -- so you'd better be careful and take care of yourself because there'd be nothing and I'd be no one without you --
I love you so much -- I never thought I could love you more than the day we were married but I do -- and I'm so proud of you -- every day -- I could pop -- It just keeps getting bigger and bigger -- those poor other mommies -- they don't have you -- but I do -- and I hope you'll always have a me.
xxx
Once, pausing at a gallery of photos in a Century Plaza Hotel suite dedicated to Reagan, Nancy gave a huge smile as she spotted a picture of she and her husband floating in their canoe Tru Luv in the pond the president built at their mountaintop ranch north of Santa Barbara.
"I'm old-fashioned, I know, but I thought it would be so romantic if he was playing a ukulele," Mrs. Reagan said, recalling the photo taken on their 25th wedding anniversary.
"I don't have a ukulele," Reagan told her that day.
Nancy replied, “That's OK, you can hum."
In another letter to his wife, we can see not only the devotion and respect that he holds for her, but for God as well. He had a deep religious faith, as we see reflected in this letter to Nancy, explaining his decision to resume traveling on airplanes during his campaign for governor.
"I have to write this because of all our talks about flying and because you'd try to take the blame personally if ever something did happen. That would be wrong. God has a plan and it isn't for us to understand, only to know that He has his reasons and because He is all merciful and all loving we can depend on it that there is a purpose in whatever He does and it is for our own good. What you must understand without any question or doubt is that I believe this and trust him and you must, too. What you must also believe is that I love you more and more each day and it grows more bright and shining all the time."
This is a man whose faith is both humbling and a source of strength. Humbling because he clearly recognizes that God, not himself, is in charge, but also a source of strength. Here is a man who knows that God is with him as he faces the challenges of life.
And what challenges they are. On June 5th, 2004, at the age of 93, Ronald Reagan was taken to Heaven. He had suffered with Alzheimers since coming out in the press and announcing this disease in 1994. Along with this debilitating illness, he had battled complications of pneumonia and passed away in his home, in Los Angeles, California.
Stricken at the loss of her husband, her only love, Nancy writes in her book, these words.
"We've had an extraordinary life ... but the other side of the coin is that it makes it harder. There are so many memories that I can no longer share, which makes it very difficult. When it comes right down to it, you're in it alone. Each day is different, and you get up, put one foot in front of the other, and go-- and love; just love."
Surrounded by her children, Ron, Patti and Michael, she struggles daily to survive without her husband-her love, her life, her sweetheart...
Article by- Jorene Haight
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