page_title: Ann Romney
section_title: Subsequent activities
hierarchical_section_title: Ann Romney / Subsequent activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Ann Romney speaking at a book signing in Gilbert, Arizona.
context_page_description: Ann Lois Romney is an American equestrian, author, and philanthropist. She is the wife of businessman and politician, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah. From 2003 to 2007, Romney was First Lady of Massachusetts, while her husband served as Governor.
  She was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and attended the private Kingswood School there, where she dated Mitt Romney. She converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1966. She attended Brigham Young University, married Mitt Romney in 1969, and in 1975 received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French.
  As First Lady of Massachusetts, Romney served as the governor's liaison for federal faith-based initiatives. She was involved in a number of children's charities, including Operation Kids. She was an active participant in her husband's U.S. presidential campaigns in 2008 and again in 2012, when he was the Republican Party nominee.
  Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998 and has credited a mixture of mainstream and alternative treatments with giving her a lifestyle mostly without limitations.
context_section_description: Following the election, Ann Romney received an offer to appear on the spring 2013 season of Dancing with the Stars, but although she was a fan of the show, she declined: "I would've loved to have done it, and I am turning 64, and I started thinking about it. I'm not really as flexible as I should be."  She still mourned the election loss, perhaps more than her husband did. In October 2013, she published, and made promotional appearances for, The Romney Family Table: Sharing Home-Cooked Recipes & Favorite Traditions, a cookbook that made the New York Times Best Seller list.
  Most of the couple's time was spent seeing their grandchildren, who by 2015 numbered twenty-three (and then subsequently rose to twenty-four by 2018).  They purchased a house in the Deer Valley area of Park City, Utah, in a return to that state, followed by a property capable of equestrian use in Holladay, Utah, where they plan to tear down an existing house and build a new one.  The Romneys also gained long-sought permission to replace their La Jolla home with a much bigger one.  With the new acquisitions the couple briefly had five homes, located near each of their five sons and respective families.  They then sold the condominium in Belmont and decided to make their main residence in Utah, including switching voter registration.
  In 2014, the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases was opened at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School) in Boston.  With a fundraising goal of $50 million, the center was created to focus on research into Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and brain tumors.  The center has some 250 scientists and researchers on its staff.  Romney holds the position of Global Ambassador there, and she gives inspirational talks based on overcoming the challenges of living with a disease.  She has said of this role, "I know what it's like to be desperate. I know what it's like to have no hope. And I don't want people to feel that way anymore. I am going to give people hope."  Overall, she sees the center as helping to connect researchers working in different areas and to provide monies for experimental approaches and treatments that are too new or unproven for the National Institute of Health to fund.
  During 2014, speculation about Mitt Romney staging a third presidential run increased.  Ann Romney's reaction was to say it would not happen: "Done. Completely. Not only Mitt and I are done, but the kids are done. Done. Done. Done."  However, like her husband, she left open the slight possibility that things could change in this regard, and by January 2015 was reported by Romney advisors to be supporting the possibility as he seriously considered a third presidential bid.  In any event, he soon decided against making a run.
  In March 2015, her book Whatever You Choose to Be: 8 Tips for the Road Ahead was published, based upon a commencement address she gave the year before at Southern Utah University. This was followed in September 2015 when her memoir In This Together: My Story was published.  In it she discussed her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, the different treatments she found beneficial, and the important role her family played.  The book became popular among those afflicted with the disease.
  During the course of the 2016 election cycle, Romney expressed sympathy toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton since she had also experienced claims of not being relatable. She was also puzzled by Republican front-runner Donald Trump's success despite touting his wealth whereas the Romneys had not, yet still were criticized for not relating to common voters because of theirs. Though highly critical of her husband after he spoke negatively of the Trump candidacy in March 2016, Trump praised Ann Romney as "a lovely woman".  Ann Romney earned at least one vote for president when her husband cast a write-in vote for her in November 2016, later saying he voted for "a person who I admire deeply, who I think would be an excellent president".
caption: Romney at a book signing in December 2015 in Gilbert, Arizona.
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