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Barbara Bush, the former first lady known for her love of literacy, has died at the age of 92.It was revealed earlier this week that the wife of former President George H.W. Bush was in "failing health" and that she would not seek additional medical treatment.A statement from George H.W. Bush’s office reads: “A former First Lady of the United States of America and relentless proponent of family literacy, Barbara Pierce Bush passed away Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at the age of 92. She is survived by her husband of 73 years, President George H.W. Bush; five children and their spouses; 17 grandchildren; seven great grandchildren; and her brother, Scott Pierce. She was preceded in death by her second child, Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush, and her siblings Martha Rafferty and James R. Pierce.”A spokeswoman said former President George H.W. Bush held the hand of his wife, Barbara Bush, all day and was by her side when she died.Jean Becker, the chief of staff at Bush's office in Houston, said in a statement released by Bush family spokesman Jim McGrath that the 41st president "is broken-hearted to lose his beloved Barbara."Becker said it's a "very challenging time" for the 93-year-old Bush, but "he also is stoic and strong, and is being lifted up by his large and supportive family."Mrs. Bush was hospitalized multiple times in the last year while battling with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure.Her 93-year-old husband, the nation's 41st president who served from 1989 to 1993, has also had health issues in recent years. In April 2017, he was hospitalized in Houston for two weeks due to a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. He was hospitalized months earlier, also for pneumonia. He has a form of Parkinson's disease and uses a motorized wheelchair.Barbara Pierce Bush was born June 8, 1925, in Manhattan. Raised in the city of Rye, N.Y., her father Marvin Pierce was the publisher of McCall's and Redbook magazines. She and George H.W. Bush married in 1945 when she was 19 and while he was a young naval aviator. After World War II, the Bush family moved to Texas, where he went into the oil business. The couple had six children and were married longer than any presidential couple in American history."They're the most suited people you can imagine. Both of them grew up in well-to-do circumstances, and I think they both felt the obligation to give back to their fellow man and all of us, and it comes out in everything they do," friend and family historian Kirsten Camp said.Eight years after she and her husband left the White House, Barbara Bush stood with her husband as their son, George W. Bush, was sworn in as the 43rd president. She is the only living wife of one former president and the mother of another former president.During her years as the nation’s first lady, Bush become famous for her white hair and her triple-strand pearl necklace. Her brown hair began to gray in the 1950s and she later said dyed hair didn't look good on her and credited the color for the public's perception of her as "everybody's grandmother."Her pearls sparked a national fashion trend when she wore them to her husband's inauguration in 1989. The pearls became synonymous with Bush, who later said she selected them to hide the wrinkles in her neck. The candid admission only bolstered her common sense and down-to-earth public image.Bush’s platform for literacy across America began during her White House years, with a goal to improve the lives of disadvantaged Americans by boosting literacy among parents and their children. She founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.The foundation partners with local programs and had awarded more than $40 million as of 2014 to create or expand more than 1,500 literacy programs nationwide. “Focusing on the family is the best place to start to make this country more literate, and I still feel that being more literate will help us solve so many of the other problems facing our society,” she wrote in her 1994 memoir."It wasn't an agenda that over shadowed her husband by any means, but she wanted to do good, and she wanted to take that step out to do it. I think she's the first one we really saw from her own foundations, and take a step out on her own to do what she believed in, at the same time keeping the elegance of her role and being supportive of her husband," Camp said.Funeral services for are planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, which she and her husband regularly attended.According to a post on the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation website, Bush will lie in repose from noon to midnight Friday at the church for members of the public wishing to pay respects.The funeral service Saturday is by invitation only.Burial will be on the grounds of the Bush library at Texas A&M University in College Station, about 100 miles northwest of Houston. The couple's 3-year-old daughter, Robin, who died in 1953 of leukemia, also is buried at the site.The Associated Press contributed to this report.