Remarkable Roberta: at 106, John McCain's mother has outlived him
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Travel was a given for the wife of a naval officer, and Roberta and her children moved repeatedly, “always in the middle of a school term,” she said in a 2008 C-SPAN interview. (A roving childhood would come to define Senator McCain’s first run for Congress in the early 1980s. When accused of setting down artificial roots in Arizona during a candidate forum, McCain shot back by saying that the place he had lived the longest in his life was Hanoi.)
Then Republican presidential nominee John McCain embraces his mother, Roberta, following his acceptance speech in 2008.
Photo: AP
To round out her children’s irregular schooling, Roberta planned road trips to educational destinations. In his memoir, McCain wrote that the attractions included art galleries, museums, buildings designed by famous architects, natural wonders and the homes of famous figures. He had particularly fond memories of the Grand Canyon; Carlsbad Caverns; Natchez, Mississippi; and Mount Vernon, in Virginia, to name a few.
On one of those trips, Roberta drove her family to Juarez, Mexico, so she could show her children a cathedral that her own father had taken her to when she was young. The trip did not go as planned. The family got lost and wandered into a rough part of town, at which point Roberta “sensibly called off the search and beat a hasty retreat for the border,” McCain wrote.
In 1967, the McCains were in London when they received a call that their son’s plane had been shot down over Vietnam. Roberta believed Johnny was dead.
Article source: https://www.smh.com.au/sport/proteas-opener-gives-australia-plenty-to-ponder-20180307-p4z35t.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed
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