California Senate Honors Nancy Reagan
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — California lawmakers paid tribute to the wife of former governor and president Ronald Reagan on Monday.
Nancy Reagan, 94, died on March 6.
Dennis Revell says she always had a special place in her heart for Sacramento, and she told him it's where she got her chops to become first lady of the United States.
State Sen. Jean Fuller was one of many lawmakers who shared memories of the former first lady of California and the United States. Among the crowd was Revell, Ronald Reagan's son-in-law.
"We developed a very special bond after she and the late president left Washington, D.C.," he said.
Revell was married to Maureen Reagan, Ronald Reagan's daughter from his first marriage to actress Jane Wyman. Maureen died at 60 after a five-year battle with cancer.
The Granite Bay resident says he and Nancy Reagan shared a common responsibility for their respective spouses.
"Not only their best friend and their partner, but we were their best protector," she said.
That protection and bond gres when both father and daughter were hospitalized at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.
"She relied on me a lot; I relied on her as I struggled with Maureen's illness, and it was a unique friendship that appreciate and will miss terribly," he said.
Before Nancy Reagan died of congestive heart failure, she was a fierce advocate for Alzheimer's research after her husband's diagnosis. She often reflected on her time in Sacramento.
"She thought her time here in the state Capitol helped prepare her for her term as first lady, for the nation, and I think realized in some respects, Sacramento was a much kinder environment than D.C. was initially," he said.