Formal mourning begins for Reagan
LOS ANGELES — Three days of formal mourning and solemn ceremonies for former first lady Nancy Reagan are set to begin Wednesday.
A small ceremony in the morning for family and friends in Santa Monica, California will be followed by a motorcade leading to a public viewing in the afternoon at Simi Valley’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that will continue on Thursday. Eight Secret Service agents who served the Reagans will act as pallbearers when the body is taken from the Santa Monica funeral home.
Friday will be the funeral — which was planned down to the smallest details by the former first lady herself. Just as she was always by his side in life, Nancy Reagan will be laid to rest just inches from President Ronald Reagan on a hillside tomb facing west toward the Pacific Ocean.
Before her death she planned the funeral’s flower arrangements, the music to be played by a U.S. Marine Corps band and the people who received invitations to the private memorial.
Among those who had RSVP’d for the service were former President George W. Bush and his wife, former first lady Laura Bush, former first ladies Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Clinton and first lady Michelle Obama.
“No doubt about it, the most important of her special requests was that she be laid to rest right next to the president, as close as possible,” said John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library.
“The way the tomb is constructed,” he continued, “her casket will literally be set forth in the ground inches from President Reagan’s.”
The hour-long service, to which approximately 1,000 people have been invited, is to take place on the library’s lawn. On a clear day the gravesite affords visitors ocean views.
