RIP: Lady Bird Johnson

[cartman]

The former first lady passed away this afternoon. She was pretty much the matriarch of the state of Texas.

hxxp://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/news/stories/ladybird/0711ladybird.html

[MikeVic]

R.I.P.

[WSUCougar]

Actually had a chance to meet her once. Was attending a conference in Austin and our group got to have a barbeque at the Johnson Ranch. She was very sweet.

[Senator]

The very first time I met her she held my hand while she asked me questions. It felt like I was with a beloved relative. She had an amazing ability to make you feel like she cared, and her secret, was that she did.

[Ksyrup]

Don't worry about it. Schmidty's in one of his "moods." He'll chastise himself about in a few minutes.

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Don't worry about it. Schmidty's in one of his "moods." He'll chastise himself about in a few minutes.

Actually, I didn't really think I was harsh or anything, and I'm actually in a pretty good mood. I guess that means something about me. Good or bad, I'm not sure.

(I also deleted my innocent little post.)

[Schmidty]

Actually, it looks like something fell on it.


RIP Lady Bird. Seriously.

[cthomer5000]

Lady Bird is not her birth name, for the record.

[BYU 14]

R.I.P

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

Actually, I didn't really think I was harsh or anything, and I'm actually in a pretty good mood. I guess that means something about me. Good or bad, I'm not sure.

(I also deleted my innocent little post.)

Between this post and your comments in the other thread, I thought you were going off on people for no reason. You know, you do that every now and then.

[Neon_Chaos]

When I clicked, I thought the thread name said Larry Bird Johnson.

[Huckleberry]

[korme]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Lady Bird is not her birth name, for the record.

Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Senator

The very first time I met her she held my hand while she asked me questions. It felt like I was with a beloved relative. She had an amazing ability to make you feel like she cared, and her secret, was that she did.

I had the exact same experience. I was stunned the next time I saw her about a year later, and she remembered my name and what we had talked about before. Here I was, a piss-ant 19-20 year old, and she remembered me and what we talked about briefly a year earlier. She was a class act, and a special person. She will be missed.

The Austin American-Statesman had a great editorial/eulogy today:

hxxp://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/07/12/0712ladybird_edit.html

EDITORIAL
Thanks, Mrs. Johnson, for gracing us with your presence

When all the volumes written about her are stacked up and analyzed, here is God's truth: The woman was a marvel — a combination of ability, intellect, purpose and charm that resulted in a rare beauty. Mrs. Johnson was, as we say in Texas, "the real deal."

Sadly, her time with us has past. Mrs. Johnson died Wednesday.

Though born in East Texas, Mrs. Johnson's literal and political fortunes revolved around Austin, the city that gave rise to a love story that survived the strains of a long political life, as well as the traumas of a presidential assassination and a divisive war.

Whatever the political turmoil swirling around Lyndon B. Johnson, his wife was always a picture of serenity, and a model of strength and support.

"What we knew, at all times, was that she was the most trusted, most loyal, most dependable person that President Johnson could turn to on any issue, but her presence was never one of intruding," recounted Tom Johnson, a top former aide to the president recounted in a PBS documentary aired in 2001.

Mrs. Johnson's diminutive stature belied a tall character and even taller determination. She taught herself business to keep her husband's storied political career financially afloat, and made a fortune.

What made the former president's political ascent possible was that Mrs. Johnson used part of her inheritance to give her husband's first political race a financial kick-start. That was in a special congressional race in 1937.

After Johnson lost a Senate bid in 1941, Mrs. Johnson bought KTBC, then a 250-watt radio station, for $17,500. Johnson used his political connections to make the radio station a CBS affiliate while Mrs. Johnson taught herself the radio business. Soon, the station was turning a profit. "What Lady Bird Johnson had quietly done was to become the first and only first lady to build and maintain a fortune with her own money," a PBS documentary titled "Lady Bird Johnson: Portrait of a First Lady" declared in 2001.

She did that in an age when women and children were to be seen and not heard. She was, of course, at his side in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, that horrible day when Vice President Johnson became President Johnson.

While the president took charge, so did she. One test of loyalty came early in the Johnson administration. In October 1964, presidential aide Walter Jenkins was arrested in Washington, D.C., on a sex charge. The first lady swam against conventional wisdom and pointedly reminded her husband of the aide's long ties to the Johnsons. In a conversation captured on a White House tape, Mrs. Johnson firmly reminds the president that Jenkins was there for them and they should return the loyalty.

The president balks and pleads with Mrs. Johnson to understand the complexities of the situation and the potential impact on his young administration. Mrs. Johnson stands fast, graciously but firmly. When all is said and done, Jenkins gets a public statement of support from Johnson. Aside from the occasional snide comment from LBJ's political rivals, the Jenkins episode is largely forgotten.

After Johnson left the White House in 1969, Mrs. Johnson became active in Austin and Texas. She was appointed to the University of Texas Board of Regents in 1971 and was a driving force behind the construction of the LBJ Library and Museum. Her interest in nature manifested itself in the Highway Beautification Act that passed while her husband was president and continued in the post-White House years. Mrs. Johnson was instrumental in the creation of the hike-and-bike trails that traverse Austin, and, of course, there is a nature center that bears her name. In 1977, President Ford awarded Mrs. Johnson a Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award.

To those of us in Austin who were ever privileged to share a room with her, however, it is not the awards and the accolades we'll remember. It will be the grace and gentility she exuded.

We talk about Austin's quality of life, but have difficulty defining it. Mrs. Johnson's dedication to preserving and enhancing the area's natural beauty is a cornerstone to that quality.

Our lives here are richer and better because Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson passed this way.