Ann Romney (born April 16, 1949) is the wife of American businessman and Republican Party politician Mitt Romney. From 2003 to 2007 she was First Lady of Massachusetts.
She was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and attended the private Kingswood School there, where she dated Mitt Romney. Influenced by their relationship, she converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1966. She began attending Brigham Young University, then married Mitt Romney in 1969. The couple have five children, born between 1970 and 1981. She completed her undergraduate education at Harvard Extension School with a bachelor's degree in 1975.
In 1998, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. A mixture of mainstream and alternative treatments has given her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. She found equestrian activities to be therapeutic and has become an avid participant in the sport, receiving recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level and competing professionally in Grand Prix as well. While serving as Massachusetts First Lady, she was the governor's liaison for federal faith-based initiatives. She has been involved in a number of children's charities, including Operation Kids. She was an active participant in her husband's 2008 presidential run, where she became the most visible of all the Republican candidates' wives in campaigning.
First Lady of Massachusetts and charitable work
In January 2003, following her husband's successful campaign in the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, Romney became First Lady of Massachusetts, a position she held through January 2007. In that role, she generally kept a low public profile; in 2006, The Boston Globe characterized her as "largely invisible" within the state (although by then she was becoming more visible outside the state, due to national appearances in connection with her husband's possible presidential campaign).
While Massachusetts First Lady, she was active in teenage pregnancy prevention efforts. In 2004, she said she was in favor of stem cell research as long as it was done "morally and ethically". One of her rare public appearances at the Massachusetts State House came in 2004 when she lobbied the legislature to raise awareness about multiple sclerosis.
In 2005, the governor appointed his wife as head of a new special office whose purpose was to help the state's faith-based groups gain more federal monies in association with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. This came after the state had seen its share of faith-based grants decline over the preceding three years. In this unpaid Governor's Liaison position, Ann Romney was termed a "dynamo" by Jim Towey, director of the White House office.
She has been involved in a number of children's charities, including being director of the inner city-oriented Best Friends. She worked extensively with the Ten Point Coalition in Boston and with other groups that promoted better safety and opportunities for urban youths. She was given the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from Salt Lake City-based Operation Kids. She has also served as a board member for the United Way of America and helped found United Way Faith and Action.
Marriage and children
Immediately upon the missionary's return from France in December 1968, the pair reconnected and agreed to get married as soon as possible. Ann Davies and Mitt Romney were married by an church elder in a civil ceremony on March 21, 1969, at her Bloomfield Hills home, with a reception afterward at a local country club. The following day the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony inside the Salt Lake Temple; her family could not attend since they were non-Mormons, but were present at a subsequent wedding breakfast held for them across the street.
The couple's first son was born in 1970 while both were undergraduates at Brigham Young, living in a $75-a-month basement apartment. After he graduated, the couple moved to Boston so that he could attend Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School. Slowed down by parenthood, she later finished her undergraduate work (for which she was a semester and half's worth of credits short) by taking night courses at Harvard Extension School, from which she graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in French language.
A stay-at-home mom, Romney raised the family's five boys (born between 1970 and 1981) and taught early morning scripture classes to them and other children while her husband pursued his career, first in business and then in politics. Her personality as a political wife was viewed as superficial and was a detrimental factor in her husband's eventually losing effort in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts.
Multiple sclerosis and riding
During 1997, Ann Romney began experiencing severe numbness, fatigue, and other symptoms, and just before Thanksgiving in 1998, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Mitt Romney described watching her fail a series of neurological tests as the worst day of his life. He later said: "I couldn't operate without Ann. We're a partnership. We've always been a partnership so her being healthy and our being able to be together is essential. She initially experienced a period of severe difficulty with the disease, and later said: "I was very sick in 1998 when I was diagnosed. I was pretty desperate, pretty frightened and very, very sick. It was tough at the beginning, just to think, this is how I'm going to feel for the rest of my life. Since then, a mixture of mainstream and alternative treatments has given her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. She initially used corticosteroids, including intravenously, and credited them with helping stop the progression of the disease. She then dropped them and other medications due to counterproductive side effects. She has partaken of reflexology, acupuncture, and craniosacral therapy, and has said, "There is huge merit in both Eastern and Western medicine, and I've taken a little bit from both." She is a board member for the New England chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and has been given the MS Society's Annual Hope Award.
Romney is an avid equestrian, crediting her renewed involvement in it while in Park City, Utah (where the couple had built a vacation home and where they lived when he was in charge of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games) for much of her recovery after her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and for her continued ability to deal with the disease. She has received recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level, including earning her 2006 Gold Medal and 2005 Silver Medal at the Grand Prix level from the United States Dressage Federation. She also sometimes competes in professional dressage events and has broken the 60% level at Grand Prix. Romney works with California trainer Jan Ebling, who schools her and her horses in dressage and works with her importing new stock from Europe. The pair qualified for the Pan-Am games in 2004.
Early life
Born Ann Lois Davies, she was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, by parents Edward R. Davies and Lois Davies. Her father, originally from Wales, was a self-made businessman who became president of Jered Industries, a maker of heavy machinery for marine use. He was also mayor of Bloomfield Hills. Raised in the Welsh Congregationalists, he had become strongly opposed to all organized religion,although on her request the family very occasionally attended church, and she nominally identified as an Episcopalian.
Ann Davies knew of Mitt Romney since elementary school. She went to the private Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, which was the sister school to the all-boys Cranbrook School that he attended. The two were re-introduced and began dating in March 1965; they informally agreed to marriage after his senior prom in June 1965.
While he was attending Stanford University for a year and then was away starting two-and-a-half years of Mormon missionary duty in France, she decided on her own to convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during 1966. In doing so she accepted the guidance of Mitt's father George Romney, the Governor of Michigan. She graduated from high school in 1967 and began attending Brigham Young University (BYU). She also spent a semester at the University of Grenoble in France during her freshman year. The Mormon missionary rules only allowed her two brief visits with Mitt and very rare telephone calls with him. While at BYU she dated and developed strong feelings for future business academic Kim Cameron, while Mitt implored her to wait for his return.
Marriage and children
Immediately upon the missionary's return from France in December 1968, the pair reconnected and agreed to get married as soon as possible. Ann Davies and Mitt Romney were married by an church elder in a civil ceremony on March 21, 1969, at her Bloomfield Hills home, with a reception afterward at a local country club. The following day the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony inside the Salt Lake Temple; her family could not attend since they were non-Mormons, but were present at a subsequent wedding breakfast held for them across the street.
The couple's first son was born in 1970 while both were undergraduates at Brigham Young, living in a $75-a-month basement apartment. After he graduated, the couple moved to Boston so that he could attend Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School. Slowed down by parenthood, she later finished her undergraduate work (for which she was a semester and half's worth of credits short) by taking night courses at Harvard Extension School, from which she graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in French language.
A stay-at-home mom, Romney raised the family's five boys (born between 1970 and 1981) and taught early morning scripture classes to them and other children while her husband pursued his career, first in business and then in politics. Her personality as a political wife was viewed as superficial and was a detrimental factor in her husband's eventually losing effort in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts.
