Inspired By Lady Bird, Mourners Pay Respects
By John Moritz and Jay Root, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Jul. 14–AUSTIN — As the casket of her mother lay in the presidential library that honors her father, Luci Baines Johnson stepped away from a private remembrance to welcome inside the hundreds of admirers who waited more than an hour in the midday heat to bid farewell to the former first lady.
“It occurred to me that my mother would have asked these people to come inside their library and out of this heat,” the misty-eyed daughter of Lady Bird Johnson said Friday at the first public memorial for her mother, who died Wednesday at 94.
The younger Johnson accepted hugs and handshakes from countless strangers in the lobby of the LBJ Library and Museum at the University of Texas at Austin, downstairs from where her mother’s coffin rested in the same place her father had lain more than 34 years earlier.
The mourners ascended a flight of stairs for a glimpse of the simple oak casket covered by an Episcopal funeral pall that was placed alongside an obelisk featuring a quotation from her husband’s 1965 State of the Union address: “The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not how to create wealth, but how to use it.”
The mourners cited the efforts by Mrs. Johnson and her husband to build a nation of beauty and equality as reason enough to pause and reflect.
“I came to show my respects for one of the greatest ladies that ever came out of the state of Texas,” said Peter Pollard, 68, a retired carpenter from Austin. “She was a great lady. Sometimes when you’d go up and down the highways, you didn’t see nothing but just the highway. But when she put the beautification program in, it’s a pleasure to go up and down the highways now, especially in the state of Texas. It’s beautiful, something that everybody should see.”
Fort Worth native Carolyn Neighbors, who lives near Denton, drove to Austin earlier Friday recalling the first time she saw Lady Bird Johnson, nearly four decades ago.
Neighbors said she had traveled to Fredericksburg to attend a book-signing event when Mrs. Johnson’s White House diaries were published. By chance, she said, she came face to face with the former president, who inked his famous initials under the autograph placed on the book by his wife.
“We shook hands and chatted,” said Neighbors, who was in her late 20s then. “He struck me as an abrupt man who was eager to do exactly what his wife wanted him to.”
Asked whether she had cast her first vote for Johnson, a Democrat, in the 1964 presidential election, Neighbors replied no.
“I am a lifelong Republican,” she said with a smile. “But I do respect the office of president — and first lady.”
The public ceremony at the library followed a private service at the south Austin wildflower center founded by the former first lady 25 years ago. Stephen Kinney, a former rector at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, praised Mrs. Johnson for her “humility, her hospitality and her love for beauty.”
Outside the library, military pallbearers carried Mrs. Johnson’s wildflower-adorned casket past the U.S. and Texas flags swirling in the light breeze at half-staff. A bagpiper played Amazing Grace as Luci Johnson, her sister, Lynda Robb, and their husbands, Ian Turpin and former U.S. Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia, followed closely behind.
Liz Carpenter, the former first lady’s longtime friend and press aide, was among the first guests ushered inside.
Austinite Helen Short, 66, clutching a wildflower book, said the former first lady’s advocacy of the natural world inspired her.
“I’m a great admirer of Mrs. Johnson, and I’ve always felt like a kindred spirit, because I’ve always loved nature and she’s such a good example of how to treat nature,” she said. “She’s been a great inspiration to everyone in this country, I think.”
Such sentiments left Luci Johnson struggling to contain her emotions.
“I always knew that Mother was not just mine,” said Johnson, whose mother will be buried Sunday alongside her husband at the couple’s beloved ranch. “Mother belonged to the people of the United States. Lynda and I just got to share her.”
John Moritz and Jay Root report from the Star-Telegram’s Austin bureau.
Remembering Lady Bird
Today’s events include a private service at Austin’s Riverbend Centre church. Expected to attend: former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, their wives, first lady Laura Bush, former first lady Barbara Bush, former first lady Nancy Reagan and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy. It was not known whether President Bush will attend.
On Sunday, Lady Bird Johnson’s casket will be taken by funeral procession from Austin to the LBJ Ranch outside Johnson City, where she will be buried alongside her husband. The graveside ceremony will be private.
——
jmoritz@star-telegram.com 512-476-4294
—–
To see more of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dfw.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.