KENNEBUNKPORT (NEWS CENTER Maine) — "I’m just regular like you. I will probably run into you at Walmart."
Lisa Mills recalls her friend Barbara Bush saying these words to her.
Mills has never bumped into the former First Lady at Walmart but says Mrs. Bush is as down-to-earth as people come.
Mills has been singing for George Bush and his wife of 72 years for the last decade and a half. Along with her singing group, Women of Note, Mills has sung for the couple at many different occasions from the White House to President Bush’s birthday parties to intimate settings at Walker’s Point where only a few people were present. Mills and her group have even sung over the phone to Mr. and Mrs. Bush.
Mills and Barbara would often walk their small dogs together when Mrs. Bush was in Kennebunkport. The former First Lady has been enjoying Maine summers for more than seven decades making southern Maine her second home.
Mills gets teared up when she shows a handwritten letter Mrs. Bush wrote to her in the fall of 2016 after her husband passed away from cancer.
When the Bushes were back in Maine the following summer, Mills says they invited her out to Walker’s Point, not for a song or a walk this time but rather a hug.
“It was amazing. They got to know my husband when we would walk on the beach every morning, and that is just the kind of people they are. I was blown away.”
Mills says she is part of a group that is praying for Barbara.
“We are all devastated. I am sure she is going to fight to the very end because that is the person she is. She is strong and she is wise.”
Over the years many who have seen Barbara around southern Maine in the summers might have noticed that she was wearing different colored Keds shoes.
Mills said Mrs. Bush liked to wear different colored shoes to see if anyone would notice. When a garden was dedicated in Mrs. Bush's honor in the port, Mills wore two different colored Keds shoes just for the former First Lady.
"They are awesome, kind people, and they care immensely about Kennebunkport."
