Bush spent most of his childhood in Greenwich, at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, or at his maternal grandparents' plantation in South Carolina. Because of the family's wealth, Bush was largely unaffected by the Great Depression, a major economic downturn that led to high levels of unemployment for much of the 1930s. The Bushes enjoyed a strong marriage, and Barbara would later be a popular First Lady, seen by many as 'a kind of national grandmother'.