Americans mourn Reagan’s death ‘A man of strong principles and integrity’

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Ronald Reagan was remembered with jelly beans, flowers and American flags on Sunday at memorials in his hometown and outside the mortuary where the former president’s body lay.

“Thank you for changing the world,” said a handwritten note among the tokens of remembrance left in Santa Monica for the nation’s 40th president, who was 93 when he died Saturday of pneumonia, as a complication of Alzheimer’s.

The family’s spokeswoman said Nancy Reagan was thankful for thousands of expressions of sympathy over the death of her husband, and despite her sadness was relieved he was no longer suffering.

“I can tell you most certainly that while it is an extremely sad time for Mrs. Reagan, there is definitely a sense of relief that he is no longer suffering, and that he has gone to a better place,” Joanne Drake told a press conference outside the mortuary where Reagan’s body lay.

“It’s been a really hard 10 years for her,” Drake said of Mrs. Reagan, as nearly a week of tribute to the former president was detailed.

In a piece written for Time magazine before Reagan’s death, Mrs. Reagan remembered her husband as “a man of strong principles and integrity” who felt his greatest accomplishment was finding a safe end to the Cold War.

“I think they broke the mold when they made Ronnie,” she wrote in the article appearing Monday. “He had absolutely no ego, and he was very comfortable in his own skin; therefore, he didn’t feel he ever had to prove anything to anyone.”

Former President Jimmy Carter said Sunday that the death of Reagan, who defeated him in the 1980 presidential election, was “a sad day for our country.”

“I probably know as well as anybody what a formidable communicator and campaigner that President Reagan was. It was because of him that I was retired from my last job,” Carter said before teaching Sunday school in his hometown of Plains, Ga.

Carter added: “He presented some very concise, very clear messages that appealed to the American people. I think throughout his term in office he was very worthy of the moniker that was put on him as the ‘Great Communicator.”‘

On Monday, the Reagan family was to travel in a motorcade with the body to the presidential library in Simi Valley, northwest of Los Angeles. After a private ceremony, the body was to lie in repose for public visitation through Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the body will be flown to Washington, D.C. The family accepted an offer from President Bush to use one of his jets, normally used as Air Force One, for the trip. The body will then be driven to the U.S. Capitol for a state funeral. Reagan’s body will then lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda through Thursday.

Friday morning, a motorcade will take the casket to the National Cathedral for a national funeral service. It will then be flown back to California for a motorcade to the library for a private interment service.

Reagan will be buried in a crypt beneath a memorial site at the library, a library spokeswoman said. A curved wall adorned with shrubbery and ivy lines the memorial and is inscribed with a three-line quote from Reagan.

“I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life,” the inscription reads.

President Bush, in France to commemorate D-Day, recalled that 20 years earlier Reagan had come to Normandy on the anniversary of the June 6, 1944, invasion.

“He was a courageous leader himself and a gallant leader in the cause of freedom, and today we honor the memory of Ronald Reagan,” Bush said.

Reagan died at 1 p.m. Saturday and his body was taken to a Santa Monica funeral home. A shrine that sprouted outside grew to include a cowboy hat, personal letters, flags, candles and jelly beans.