Jackie Gingrich Cushman pens a column today saying that it’s flatly untrue that Newt Gingrich asked his first wife Jackie Battley Gingrich (her mother) for a divorce while she was recovering from surgery in the hospital. Cushman writes that the Gingriches had decided to divorce prior to Jackie Gingrich’s surgery:
Later that summer, Mom went to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for surgery to remove a tumor. While she was there, Dad took my sister and me to see her.
It is this visit that has turned into the infamous hospital visit about which many untruths have been told. I won’t repeat them. You can look them up online if you are interested in untruths. But here’s what happened:
My mother and father were already in the process of getting a divorce, which she requested.
Dad took my sister and me to the hospital to see our mother.
She had undergone surgery the day before to remove a tumor.
The tumor was benign.
As with many divorces, it was hard and painful for all involved, but life continued.
As have many families, we have healed; we have moved on.