The Associated Press
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, re-turned home late last month after a week at Seton Medical Center, where she'd been admitted for a low-grade fever.
She died of natural causes at her Austin home, surrounded by family and friends, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Christian.
Lyndon Johnson died in 1973, four years after the Johnsons left the White House.
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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.
She was born Claudia Alta Taylor on Dec. 22, 1912, in the small East Texas town of Karnack. Her father was Thomas Jefferson Taylor, a wealthy rancher and merchant. Her mother was the former Minnie Lee Patillo of Alabama.
Lady Bird Johnson received her nickname in infancy from a caretaker nurse who said she was as "pretty as a lady bird." She disliked it, but said later, "I made my peace with it."
She graduated from Marshall High School at age 15 and prepared for college at St. Mary's Episcopal School for Girls in Dallas. 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.
A few weeks later, through a friend in Austin, she met Lyndon Johnson, then secretary to U.S. Rep. Richard Kleberg, a Democrat from Texas. The day after their first date, Lyndon Johnson proposed. They were married within two months, on Nov. 17, 1934, in San Antonio.
Mrs. Johnson will lie in repose at the LBJ Library and Museum from 1:15 p.m. Friday until 11 a.m. Saturday. A private funeral service will be held Saturday afternoon and a ceremonial cortege will carry Mrs. Johnson to Stonewall for burial in the Johnson family cemetery.
