(US Election 2012: The consorts)
By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Theirs was a fairy tale romance. Mitt Romney first met his would be love “in elementary school when he was a Cub Scout; he remembers tossing pebbles at her when she rode by on a horse”
“When they met again years later at a friend’s house, he was smitten,” so says the Republican presidential nominee’s website about Ann Romney, the woman he has been married to for 43 years. The mother of their five sons, and grandmother to 18 grandchildren,
Mitt Romney recalled in a 2006 speech that he “didn’t want to be anywhere else but with Ann. I wanted to be with her all the time and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else besides being with her.
“And so, at the senior prom, as we danced a little bit, we went outside of the school and I turned to her and said, ‘Ann, would you marry me?’ And she said, ‘Yes.'”
That was in June of 1965 when he was 18 and Ann Lois Davies was 15. They were married four years later.
A graduate of the Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Ann Romney earned a bachelor of arts degree in French from Brigham Young University in August of 1976.
She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. She said alternative therapy helped her battle the disease into remission. In 2008, she was found to have breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy.
Ann Romney has sincw helped to raise awareness about the disease and served on the board of the New England Chapter of the MS Society.
She has raised money for advocacy and research into the disease and has been involved with several organizations that work with troubled children and aid disadvantaged children.
If her husband is elected President, Ann Romney as First Lady “will continue to focus attention on the challenges facing at-risk youth, raise awareness for debilitating diseases – including MS and breast cancer – and compassionately serve those in need.
“And she will continue to help demonstrate how strong families are vital to strong communities and a strong country,” the Romney website says.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])