Wildflower Legacy of Lady Bird Johnson
America's Environmentalist First Lady
Lady Bird Johnson was the earliest American First Lady to focus on improving the natural environment in Washington, D. C. and later across the United States. Through her efforts the Highway Beautification Act was passed by Congress in 1965 and the re-establishment and preservation of wildflowers became a country-wide priority. In 1997, the National Wildflower Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in her honor.
Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor was born on December 22, 1912 in the small town of Karnack, Texas, daughter of Thomas Jefferson Taylor, a general store owner and Minnie Pattillo Taylor. Her mother died when Claudia was five years old and with her two older brothers, Tommy and Tony, was raised by her father, Aunt Effie and family servants. The nickname “Lady Bird” was given to her by a nursemaid.
She graduated from Marshall High School in 1928 and attended Saint Mary’s Episcopal School for Girls until 1930, then entered the University of Texas at Austin where she earned a Bachelors of Arts in History and in addition, a Bachelor of Journalism in 1934. She and Lyndon Baines Johnson were married in 1934 and later had two daughters, Lynda and Luci.
In 1943, she invested an inheritance from her mother in a failing Austin, Texas radio station and used her education and work ethic to later include KTBC AM and FM broadcast and television stations and later to expand into Waco and Corpus Christi and cable television. Ladybird continued to be actively involved in the LBJ Holding Company into her 80s. When LBJ volunteered for the U.S. Navy in World War II, she ran his congressional office and continued to support her husband’s career during his years in government including managing the office of Majority Leader when he experienced a severe heart attack in 1955. When Lyndon became Vice President, she visited 33 countries in behalf of the United States.
Wildflower First Lady
When LBJ became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, Lady Bird John created a First Lady’s Committee for a More Beautiful Capital and later expanded the program to include the entire nation. Because of her interest, the Highway Beatification Act was passed in 1965. At the same time, she was also involved in the President’s War on Poverty focusing on Head Start for preschool children. After Lyndon decided not to run for president again, leaving the White House in 1969, she authored a memoir, “A White House Diary” and co-authored “Wildflowers Across America with Carlton Lees. In 1972, the LBJ Ranch house and surrounding property was given to the American people as a national historic site in 1972. A documentary, The First Lady: A Portrait of Lady Bird Johnson was filmed in 1982 during her 70th birthday, the same year she founded the National Wildflower Research Center, donating the funding and 60 acres of land in Austin to the nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to the preservation and re-establishment of natural and planned landscaped. It was named the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in her honor in 1997. She died on July 11, 2007 at her home in Austin ,Texas leaving behind a legacy as a conservationist, environmentalist and philanthropist .
Source:
Wildflower: The Magazine of the LadyBirdJohnsonWildflowerCenter: A Tribute to Lady Bird Johnson, 1912-2007.
Bibliography:
Appelt, Kathi, Joy Fisher Hein. Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers. New York, HarperCollins. Publishers, 2005
Russell, Jan Jarboe. Lady Bird: A Biography. New York, Scribner, 1999.
