Austin, Texas – Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady who championed conservation and worked tenaciously for the political career of her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, died Wednesday, a family spokeswoman said. She was 94.
Johnson, who suffered a stroke in 2002 that affected her ability to speak, returned home late last month after a week at Seton Medical Center, where she had been admitted for a low-grade fever.
She died at her Austin home of natural causes, surrounded by family and friends, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Christian.
Lyndon Johnson died in 1973, four years after the Johnsons left the White House. The longest-living first lady was Bess Truman, who was 97 when she died in 1982.
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush remembered Lady Bird Johnson as a “warm and gracious woman.”
“President Johnson once called her a woman of ideals, principles, intelligence and refinement. She remained so throughout their life together, and in the many years given to her afterward,” President Bush said.
Other former first ladies remembered Johnson on Wednesday as deeply devoted to her family and the environment.
“Her beautification programs benefited the entire nation. She translated her love for the land and the environment into a lifetime of achievement,” Betty Ford said.
“I believe above all else that Lady Bird will always be remembered as a loyal and devoted wife, a loving and caring mother and a proud and nurturing grandmother,” Nancy Reagan said.
The daughter of a Texas rancher, she spent 34 years in Washington, as the wife of a congressional secretary, U.S. representative, senator, vice president and president. The couple had two daughters, Lynda Bird, born in 1944, and Luci Baines, born in 1947. The couple returned to Texas after the presidency, and Lady Bird Johnson lived for more than 30 years in and near Austin.
As first lady, she was perhaps best known as the determined environmentalist who wanted roadside billboards and junkyards replaced with trees and wildflowers. She raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to beautify Washington. The $320 million Highway Beautification Bill, passed in 1965, was known as “The Lady Bird Bill,” and she made speeches and lobbied Congress to win its passage.
“Had it not been for her, I think that the whole subject of the environment might not have been introduced to the public stage in just the way it was and just the time it was. So she figures mightily, I think, in the history of the country if for no other reason than that alone,” Harry Middleton, retired director of the LBJ Library and Museum, once said.
Lady Bird Johnson once turned down a class valedictorian’s medal because of her fear of public speaking, but she joined in every one of her husband’s campaigns. She was soft-spoken but rarely lost her composure, despite heckling and grueling campaign schedules. She once appeared for 47 speeches in four days.
“How Lady Bird can do all the things she does without ever stubbing her toe, I’ll just never know, because I sure stub mine sometimes,” her husband once said.
She was born Claudia Alta Taylor on Dec. 22, 1912, in the small East Texas town of Karnack. Her father was a wealthy rancher and merchant. Her mother loved books and music.
Lady Bird Johnson received her nickname in infancy from a caretaker nurse who said she was as “pretty as a lady bird.” It was the name by which the world would come to know her.
She disliked it, but said later, “I made my peace with it.”
At the University of Texas in Austin, she studied journalism and took enough education courses to qualify as a public school teacher. She received a bachelor of arts degree in 1933 and a bachelor of journalism in 1934.
