July 11, 2007: Former Second Lady and First Lady of the United States, Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson, passed away in West Lake Hills, Texas, at the age of 94 after a series of health problems. Lady Bird Johnson served as Second Lady from 1961 to 1963 and as First Lady from 1963 to 1969. She is remembered for her beautification work and has consistently ranked as one of the most popular First Ladies throughout American history.
Lady Bird Johnson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson (née Taylor; December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was the first lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. She previously served as the second lady from 1961 to 1963 when her husband was vice president.
Notably well educated for a woman of her era, Lady Bird proved a capable manager and a successful investor. After marrying Lyndon Johnson in 1934 when he was a political hopeful in Austin, Texas, she used a modest inheritance to bankroll his congressional campaign and then ran his office while he served in the Navy.
As First Lady, Mrs. Johnson broke new ground by interacting directly with Congress, employing her own press secretary, and making a solo electioneering tour. She was an advocate for beautifying the nation’s cities and highways (“Where flowers bloom, so does hope”). The Highway Beautification Act was informally known as “Lady Bird’s Bill”. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1984, the highest honors bestowed upon a U.S. civilian. Johnson has been consistently ranked in occasional Siena College Research Institute surveys of as one of the most highly regarded American first ladies per the assessments of historians.
First Lady of the United States
In role
November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by Jacqueline Kennedy
Succeeded by Pat Nixon
Second Lady of the United States
In role
January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by Pat Nixon
Succeeded by Muriel Humphrey
Personal details
Born Claudia Alta Taylor
December 22, 1912
Karnack, Texas, U.S.
Died July 11, 2007 (aged 94)
West Lake Hills, Texas, U.S.
Resting place Johnson Family Cemetery
Political party Democratic
Spouse Lyndon B. Johnson
(m. 1934; died 1973)
Children
Lynda – Luci
Education St. Mary’s Episcopal College for Women
University of Texas, Austin (BA, BJ)
–
Health problems and death
In 1986, 13 years after her husband’s death, Johnson’s health began to fail. She suffered her first fainting spell that year while attending a funeral, and entered St. David’s Community Hospital for observation. She also injured her left knee in a fall the day before her hospitalization.[88] In August 1993, she suffered a stroke and became legally blind due to macular degeneration. In 1999, she was hospitalized for a second fainting spell. In 2002, she suffered a second, more severe, stroke, which left her unable to speak normally or walk without assistance. In 2005, she spent a few days in an Austin hospital for treatment of bronchitis. In February 2006, Lynda Johnson Robb told a gathering at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, that her mother was totally blind and was “not in very good health”.[89] In June 2007, she spent six days in Seton Hospital in Austin after suffering from a low-grade fever.[90]
Lady Bird Johnson died at home on July 11, 2007, at 4:18 p.m. (CDT) from natural causes at the age of 94, attended by family members and Catholic priest Father Robert Scott.[91][92][93]
At the funeral service, her daughter, Luci Baines Johnson gave a eulogy, saying, “A few weeks before Mother died, I was taking visiting relatives to the extraordinary Blanton Art Museum … Mother was on IV antibiotics, a feeding tube, and oxygen, but she wasn’t gonna let little things like that deter her from discovering another great art museum. What a picture we were—literally rolling through the museum like a mobile hospital.”[94]
Three weeks before Johnson’s death, the rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, which had been her second home for more than 50 years, had announced to his parishioners that she had given $300,000 to pay off the church’s mortgage.[95]
Johnson’s funeral was a public event. On July 15, 2007, a ceremonial cortège left the Texas State Capitol. The public was invited to line the route through downtown Austin on Congress Avenue and along the shores of Lady Bird Lake to pay their respects. The public part of the funeral procession ended in Johnson City. The family had a private burial at the Johnson family cemetery in Stonewall, where she was buried next to her husband, who had died 34 years earlier.[96] Unlike previous funerals for first ladies, the pallbearers came from members of the armed forces.[96][97]