He later trained in Lewiston Maine at the
Lewiston Sun Journal
George H.W. Bush’s ties to Lewiston-Auburn
By Bonnie Washuk, Staff Writer - December 1, 2018
LEWISTON — You may not know this, but former President George H.W. Bush had connections to Lewiston-Auburn.
In 1945 during World War II, he and his wife, Barbara Bush, lived in the Twin Cities while he was getting Navy flight training at the Auburn airport.
1945: ONE-ROOM APARTMENT IN AUBURN
Details are sparse about the time Barbara and George Bush lived in Lewiston-Auburn. But the George Bush Presidential Library confirmed that President and Mrs. Bush lived in Lewiston-Auburn from March 26, 1945, to sometime in May 1945.
Bush was here to prepare for additional combat duty in the Pacific, according to an archivist with the George Bush Presidential Library. This training happened after Bush was shot down and rescued in 1944 in the Pacific Ocean.
And in 1991 and 2000 when Bush was in Lewiston, he told reporters that shortly after he and Barbara married, he was stationed in Lewiston flying torpedo bombers for the Navy. The training was at the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport, which has a portrait photo of George Bush in his U.S. Navy uniform.
The newlyweds lived for a short time in an Auburn apartment, Bush said.
In 2007 the Sun Journal’s Sun Spots found a posting at books.google.com that noted an excerpt from “Barbara Bush: A Memoir.”
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“We were moved to a base in Maine and lived in several rooms in the Lewiston-Auburn area. George’s mother came to see us, and told my mother we lived in the red light district. Rooms were hard to find in base towns. We had a small, one-room efficiency apartment with a kitchen in the closet and a Murphy-in-the-door bed. … I’ll never forget the day George came home early (April 12, 1945) because Franklin Roosevelt had died. We were sick.”
Local historian Douglas Hodgkin wrote, “During his presidential visit in 1991, as an aside the president noted that he and Mrs. Bush resided in Lewiston very briefly in 1945 during his flight training at the Naval Auxiliary Air Facility at the Lewiston-Auburn Airport. Some people think he lived in the College or Oak street area. However, during a visit in 2000, Bush indicated they lived for a short time in an Auburn apartment. He remembered they were there when FDR died.”
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