SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — She devoted her adult life to protecting and caring for the man she loved, Ronald Reagan, but untold others demonstrated Wednesday that they also cared for her.
Thousands of people are expected to file through the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to honor former first lady Nancy Reagan during a three-day period of formal mourning that began Wednesday.
Mrs. Reagan died Sunday at 94 in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Some of those leaving the closed-casket viewing Wednesday dabbed their eyes afterward as they waited for shuttles outside the library, which was draped with two banners showing Mrs. Reagan in her iconic White House portrait dressed in a slim, elegant, floor-length red gown.
“I just love her,” said Debra Allen, who drove 2 hours from her home in San Jacinto, then waited another hour to board a shuttle. “It was very touching to be in the presence of a woman who loved and supported her husband so unconditionally.”
A police-escorted motorcade drove slowly under an enormous American flag hanging from an overpass and through an empty Ronald Reagan Freeway carrying her casket to the library after a brief private service.
Several hundred onlookers lined the boulevard leading to the funeral home, some capturing photos and video of the procession.
As the funeral procession pulled into the long, winding driveway leading to the library and museum in the pastoral hills of Simi Valley, 100 waiting docents held small flags.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan was the only visiting dignitary to attend the viewing. He would be unable to attend the main memorial service Friday, said John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
“He had a chance to pay his respects alone before the rest of the public got here,” Mr. Heubusch said in a video posted online by the Los Angeles News Group. He added that Mr. Ryan said a prayer and spent several minutes at the flower-draped casket.
Although Mrs. Reagan was best known as the nation’s first lady from 1981 to 1989, Californians also remember her service as the state’s first lady during Mr. Reagan’s eight years as governor.
Los Angeles Fire Department personnel stood at attention at three overpasses on Interstate 405 and Highway 118 during the funeral motorcade’s stately procession as “a show of respect and admiration for our state and the nation’s former first lady,” said fire department spokesman Brian Humphrey.
The casket of Mrs. Reagan, draped with her favorite white roses and peonies, is being guarded by members of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, the Ventura County Fire Department and the Simi Valley Police Department.
Eight Secret Service agents who served in the Reagan White House served as pallbearers for the former first lady’s casket at the Gates, Kingsley & Gates Moeller Murphy Funeral Home and then at the library.
Some of those who came to the library were too young to have voted for Reagan or remember much about his presidency. Others, like Paula K., who declined to give her last name, said she didn’t vote for Reagan but wanted to show her respect for Mrs. Reagan’s service.
“This is a human being, and I’m coming to acknowledge a life well and fully lived,” she said. “It was tremendously courageous for a woman to have the voice she had. Regardless of whether you agreed with her or not, she lived so large.”
Mrs. Reagan will be buried at the library beside her husband after Friday’s funeral service. Mr. Reagan died June 5, 2004, at 93 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
The private Wednesday service was attended by Mrs. Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis, the children of Michael Reagan and Dennis Revell, the widower of the president’s daughter Maureen Reagan.
Mrs. Reagan’s son Ron Reagan and Michael Reagan, the former president’s son from his first marriage, are expected to attend the Friday funeral.
Four past and present first ladies, including Michelle Obama, are also scheduled to attend the funeral Friday. Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, plans to “drop off the trail briefly” to attend the service, according to a campaign spokesman.
Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, and former first lady Rosalynn Carter are also planning to pay their respects.
President Obama is not scheduled to accompany his wife, which prompted some criticism on social media, although recent presidents have often not attended the funerals of first ladies.
Others scheduled to pay their respects include entertainers Anjelica Huston, Wayne Newton, Melissa Rivers, Tina Sinatra and Mr. T, the former “A-Team” television star who participated in Mrs. Reagan’s anti-drug campaign during the 1980s.
Mr. T said on social media Monday that Mrs. Reagan was “Very Special to me.”
“Not only did she invite me to the White House in December ’83, after meeting with her and President Ronald Reagan she then asked me to help her with her ’Just Say No’ program which I gladly accepted with humility and honor,” Mr. T said on Twitter.
The Rev. Stuart A. Kenworthy, vicar of Washington National Cathedral, officiated at Wednesday’s private family service and will oversee Friday’s funeral ceremony. He was assisted Wednesday by the Rev. Donn Moomaw, the Reagan family minister, according to the Reagan foundation.
Mr. Obama has directed U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff on public buildings in Mrs. Reagan’s honor.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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