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It was evening on Sept. 11, 2001, when former first lady Laura Bush rejoined her husband and daughters for the first time after the deadly terrorist attacks.
"I don't remember what we said," she said Friday in Salt Lake City. "We hugged each other. Our daughters were safe. We were safe" in a bunker below the White House.
The wife of former President George W. Bush and her daughter Jenna Bush Hager addressed thousands at the family history conference RootsTech at the Salt Lake Palace.
In a nearly half-hour speech, Bush touched on life in the White House, the importance of family and her perspective on the days after 9-11.
"There was no reassuring anybody that day," she said, adding that the events "gave gravity" to her role on both domestic and global levels.
Hager, 33, a contributor for NBC's "Today Show" and an editor-at-large for Southern Living Magazine, joined her mother on stage for a half-hour question-and-answer session focused on the influence of family in their life. The pair often mentioned Hager's infant daughter, Mila.
Laura Bush also promoted her husband's 2014 book, "41: A Portrait of My Father," which chronicles the life of his father, former President George H.W. Bush.
"It's a lovely tribute to a great man," Laura Bush said. "It's really a love story."
Bush also humanized the aging former president. As in-laws, she said, George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara were "a huge advantage," both as mentors and baby sitters.
The senior Bushes are living in Dallas, "living what I call an afterlife, an estate George calls the 'promised land'," the former first lady said.
Friday's speech was not the first time Bush has touched down in Salt Lake City.
In 2002, when George and Laura Bush came for the Winter Olympics, then-LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley presented them with a genealogy report tracing their family history. Recalling the fond memory on Friday, Laura Bush noted it highlighted the value of family — "one of the most important things in life."
The three-day RootsTech conference, publicized as the "largest family history conference in the world," ends Saturday. Organizers said 25,000 genealogy buffs had registered to attend at least part of the conference.
Besides the Bushes, other speakers range from leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to U.S. Olympic skeleton racer Noelle Pikus-Pace. Donny Osmond is scheduled to appear Saturday.
FamilySearch, the host organization for RootsTech, is a genealogy arm of the Utah-based LDS Church.
Scores of conference workshops this week include tips on starting a genealogy-based business to using facial recognition tools, DNA and TV to track ancestors. Other sessions focus on tracing Jewish roots and 21st-century Italian genealogy.
FamilySearch CEO Dennis Brimhall said in an earlier statement that the Bushes were fitting guests of the conference. "This will be quite memorable," he said.
Bush is a mother, grandmother and best-selling author who founded the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. She also is chairman of the Women's Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute.
The former first lady said she and George W. Bush are busy at the Bush Institute, where they direct a number of public policy initiatives that include education, global health, economic and pro-democracy projects.
The think tank takes up most of his time, but in spare moments, her husband takes to painting, she said.
Bush touched on her family's years in the White House, but did not go into detail.
"In the White House, reality can get a little warped," she said, adding that she tried to avoid reading "absurd news items" about the family and referring to political jeering that targeted her husband as the "clanking gears of democracy."
She noted that the months after 9-11 weighed heavily on her husband, adding that he seldom cracked jokes during the period.
Bush drew laughs when talking about adjusting to life after the White House.
"For me, it's come to this," she joked, placing a bobble-head doll depicting herself on the podium. A friend found it in Philadelphia, she said. "It was on the clearance shelf."
"Our lives are back to normal," she added. "But I think I may have forgotten what normal is."
Linda Peterson, an employee at the Family History Center in Brigham City and a grandmother of 10, said the speech demonstrated that Bush "is just a regular person. I thought it was wonderful."
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