Ann Romney
Ann Lois Romney (née Davies; born April 16, 1949) is the wife of American businessman and politician Mitt Romney, who was the Republican nominee in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. From 2003 to 2007 she was First Lady of Massachusetts while her husband served as governor of the state. 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 (BYU), married Mitt Romney in 1969, and in 1975 received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French. As First Lady of Massachusetts, she served as the governor's liaison for federal faith-based initiatives. She was involved in a number of children's charities, including Operation Kids, and was an active participant in her husband's 2008 presidential run as well as the 2012 one. 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. In one of those activities, equestrianism, she has consequently received recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level and competed professionally in Grand Prix as well. In 2008, she was also diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive type of breast cancer. She underwent a lumpectomy in December of the same year and has since been cancer-free. She and husband Mitt have five sons, born between 1970 and 1981, and twenty-two grandchildren.