Columba Garnica Gallo was born in the community of Arperos, in the city ofLeón, Guanajuato, Mexico, the daughter of José María Garnica Rodríguez, a migrant worker and waiter from Arperos, Guanajuato, and Josefina Gallo Esquivel, from León, who were married in February 1949. Columba's father abandoned the family in 1956 when she was 3 years old and her parents divorced in 1963. Following the departure of her father, Columba and her mother remained in León. Garnica attended Instituto Antonia Mayllen, a private Catholic school in the historic center of León. She met Jeb Bush in 1970 in León when she was 16 years old and he was 17. Bush was teaching English as a second language and assisting in the building of a school in the small nearby village of Ibarrilla as part of a class at Andover called Man and Society. Garnica married February 23, 1974, in Austin, Texas at the chapel in the Catholic student center on the campus of the University of Texas. At the time of the wedding, she did not speak English and a part of the wedding ceremony was conducted in Spanish.
Politics
In 1988, she appeared in a Spanish-language campaign commercial for her father-in-law, George H. W. Bush, in his campaign for President and she presented a nominating speech for him, also in Spanish, at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans. But, for the most part, she tends to be uninvolved in politics. As First Lady of Florida, Bush advocated for Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, and Arts for Life, a group that gives scholarships to young artists. Columba Bush has been active in promoting the arts. In 1999, she worked with Arts for a Complete Education/Florida Alliance for Arts Education to create Arts for Life!, a program devoted to increasing the importance of art in the education system. As First Lady she put together various art exhibitions focusing on Salvador Dalí, Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo, and Florida artists. Bush has been active in programs to warn young people of the dangers of drug abuse. She has worked on treatment and prevention programs such as the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She has served as co-chair of the NIAAA initiative, Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free, and has served on the board of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. As First Lady, she visited shelters, studied reports on addiction in adolescence, put together exhibitions, and connected donors with charities. In 2003, as First Lady of Florida, Bush was part of a delegation to Rome to celebrate John Paul II's 25th anniversary as Pope, at St. Peter's Basilica. Bush used her platform to become an advocate on issues like domestic violence, substance abuse, and the arts, and she has been involved with organizations that advocate substance abuse treatment and prevention. During her husband's 2016 presidential election campaign, Bush visited women's shelters in Iowa and New Hampshire.
