Friends, Family Remember Lady Bird

Source: Associated Press

By KELLEY SHANNON

(AP) Jennifer Robb, left, places her head on the shoulder of her sister Lucinda Robb as she holds her...
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Lady Bird Johnson's wit, wisdom and love of beauty - in nature, in children and in democracy - were remembered Saturday as family, friends and presidents bade farewell at her funeral.

"It is unthinkable to me that she's gone. She was so much a part of our landscape, so much a part of our lives," Bill Moyers, a television host and former aide to President Lyndon Johnson, said at the service.


Jennifer Robb, left, places her head on the shoulder of her sister Lucinda Robb as she holds her daughter Madeline Florio as they pause at the casket of their grandmother, former first lady Lady Bird Johnson inside the LBJ Library & Museum Friday, July 13, 2007 in Austin, Texas. The widow of President Lyndon B. Johnson died Wednesday of natural causes at her Austin home. She was 94. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck, Pool)

The former first lady died Wednesday at age 94 of natural causes.

Along with her devotion to preserving wildflowers and native plants, Lady Bird Johnson worked tirelessly for her husband's political career, Moyers said. He recalled her marathon stumping through the South during the 1964 presidential campaign amid anger that raged at Lyndon Johnson over his signing of the Civil Rights Act.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070714/D8QCLJQ00.html

Especially when he talked about Lady Bird's campaigning in the South in 64 post-Civil Rights Act and all the racist abuse she endured :patriot:

:shrug: I'd love to read or hear it.

at a memorial service. Pickles should have sat on her hands if she couldn't resist.

Gawd! :thumbsdown:

because Lady Bird was 94! Raise a glass to her!

Why didn't Bush go?

"no lying scumbags allowed at funerals of former First Ladies" rule.

Pretty ducking fumb.

Everyone at the service put up the Longhorn handsign when the song was played...even the church officials that were up on the stage. I just got done watching the entire recording of the funeral service on an Austin TV website, including when the UT song was played and the camera had video of everyone there making the gesture. Pickles is a clueless Stepford Wife, I agree, but let's pick our battles a little more carefully, perhaps?
One last thing..I graduated from elsewhere but my daughter attends UT Austin (as did one of the Bush twits), and I'd have to do more than sit on my hands to keep myself from doing the Longhorn sign at the funeral of someone who chose to have the song played (with the UT band in the funeral audience with instruments playing the song) at his/her funeral.

This reminds me of Nixon's funeral --

Lady Bird certainly understood the myth of their wealth, the myth of a self-made LBJ, the myths surround the JFK assassination and LBJ's involvement . . .

The family also knows --

And our media know --

Moyers' eulogy is on Austin American Statesman site ... you have to register (but you can just put in bogus info ... I always do).

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/07/15/0715moyers.html

When talking of her relationship with LBJ, Moyers said:

"She knew the ways of the world, and how they could be made to work for you, even when you didn't fully
understand what was going on. She told me once, years later, that she didn't even understand everything about the man she married — nor did she want to, she said, as long as he needed her.
"Oh, he needed her, all right. You know the famous incident. Once, trying to locate her in a crowded room, he growled aloud: 'Where's Lady Bird?' And she replied: 'Right behind you, darling, where I've always been.' "

When talking of how Lady Bird showed courage in the face of jeering bigots during the civil rights struggle, Moyers said:

"She never flinches. Up to forty times a day from the platform of the caboose she will speak, sometimes raising a single white-gloved hand to punctuate her words — always the lady. When the insults grew so raucous in South Carolina, she tells the crowd the ugly words were coming "not from the good people of South Carolina but from the state of confusion." In Columbia she answers hecklers with what one observer called "a maternal bark." And she says, 'This is a country of many viewpoints. I respect your right to express your own. Now is my turn to express mine.'

"An advance man called me back at the White House from the pay phone at a local train depot. He was choking back the tears. 'As long as I live,' he said, in a voice breaking with emotion, 'I will thank God I was here today, so that I can tell my children the difference courage makes.' "