From the Houston Chronicle:
Lady Bird Johnson, a former first lady, a Texas legend, a woman who used the humble wildflower to teach an entire nation to treasure and preserve the environment, died today of natural causes at her home. She was 94.
In recent years, the widow of Lyndon Baines Johnson was virtually silenced by a stroke. She was nearly blinded by macular degeneration. Still, she lived her life with enthusiasm, dividing her time between the family ranch in Stonewall and an Austin home near the presidential library dedicated to her late husband. She thrived on visits with friends and family and inhaled mystery books on tape.
Johnson’s daughters, Luci Johnson and Lynda Robb, visited her almost continoually during her last months.
Johnson was equally comfortable counseling her daughters and the 36th president of the United States. During an era when political wives confined themselves to half a dozen safe subjects, she was a fierce soldier in Lyndon’s wars against poverty and racial injustice in the early ’60s. Before that she was an invaluable asset to the ambitious politician from Texas who progressed from the U.S. House of Representatives, to the Senate, to the vice presidency and finally, the White House.
