Clinton Returns Home to Eulogize Father Figure
HOPE, Ark. — President Clinton returned to his birthplace Thursday to bury one of the only father figures he has ever known.
He was “a man without wealth or power and without position or any pretense, but who . . . was smart and wise, profoundly good,” said Clinton in eulogizing his great-uncle Henry Oren “Buddy” Grisham, who died Monday at 92.
In an intimate chapel on Main Street, packed with those who once knew the president as “Billy,” Clinton told of how his uncle always opened his home to him when Clinton needed guidance.
The president, who delayed his speech to the United Nations Earth Summit to attend the funeral, arrived here with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton late Wednesday. Thursday morning, he laid flowers on the grave of his mother, Virginia Kelley, who died in 1994.
Clinton was born in this small town Aug. 19, 1946, three months after his father, William Jefferson Blythe, was killed in a car accident.
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