Evening star. [volume], November 24, 1963, Page B-9, Image 31

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
SOCIETY-HOME
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The New First Lady, Mrs. Lyndon Johnson, Shown in Her Spring Valley Home, The Elms
The Beige-Coated Figure
Is Always Beside Him
There was this great battery of micro
phones against the cool darkness of the
November evening as the 30th President
of the United States walked across the
airport runway to meet them.
Suddenly, silently there was the beige
clad figure beside him.
Lady Bird Johnson was beside her hus
band as she has always been—as she long
ago decided to be.
“She is a very disciplined person,” said
a friend of 25 years. “She knows Lyndon
as nobody else knows him. I think Bird
long ago decided in her marriage to make
home a haven.
“She’s a most intelligent person,” said
the same friend. “She is exactly the same
as the first day I met her 25 years ago.”
First Thought
“My first thought,” said the same friend,
“when I heard the news was—‘Thank heaven,
Bird is there by Lyndon’s side. 1
“Os course," she added, “there is a dy
namic quality about Lyndon that you feel
when you talk to him, and Bird (it is never
Lady Bird to her friends) felt it years before
we all did.”
“I remember,” says another friend, "that
somebody once asked her who was looking
after the Senate Majority Leader after he had
his heart attack. “God, I guess,” was her
reply.
You go to the Johnson ranches near
Johnson City, Texas, and you ride in white
Lincoln Continentals either with the Presi
dent or the First Lady (then the Vice Presi
dent and the Second Lady).
If you choose to ride with Lady Bird it
is a quiet ride (not over 60 miles an hour)
and she points out all the places where
Lyndon made history. There is the house
where he was bom. Here is the Johnson
family cemetery with its plaque and its giant
oak trees with Southern hanging moss.
There is the house where his mother lived.
Cousin Oriole
It is not Lady Bird, but Lyndon, who
takes you down to see Cousin Oriole.
Strangely, all along the route—in the white
Continentals, one driven by the President,
one driven by the First Lady—there is no
mention of Lady Bird Johnson’s ancestors.
Only the President’s.
Who were her forebears? Where did she
come from? That she is purely Southern
there is no doubt. You hear it in every
By LEE WALSH
Womin'i Editor. Tht Star
sentence she speaks. And it is not all Texas.
There is also the stars-fell-on-Alabama ac
cent. Even, though she was bom in Kamack,
Texas, her Alabama mother’s upbringing
comes through in all of her actions, even
in the 1960 campaign when she was used
as a spearhead for the drive for Southern
votes.
Today, Lady Bird Johnson faces the same
situation that Bess Truman faced when
President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office.
As always, her innate good taste came to the
fore and she made no statements, although
her home State had been the one where the
President of the United States came face to
face with death.
In newspaper stories, her life has always
been secondary to that of the President’s.
But there are those who wonder where the
energy comes from.
It is not a single energy. There is the
Austin TV station which she owns. There
are the four ranches they both own. There
are the friends who watch her in her long
white automobile, often refusing to pick up
the intercom phone because it bores her,
and they wonder. All newspaper stories say
that she is a good businesswoman, few write
about her as a human being.
Friendship Loyal
“Her friendship is not easily won,” says
a friend of two decades. And therein lies the
secret. Mrs. Johnson is not one to take on
friendship easily, in spite of all the people
who surround her. “Her friendship, once
you’ve earned it—and you earn it—is loyal,”
says a close associate. “And never underesti
mate her. She is most intelligent. That you
will find out,” the friend says.
What kind of a First Lady will she be?
Probably not too different from Jacqueline
Kennedy. Her parties at The Elms, or Les
Ormes, as Perle Mesta called it, have been
headlined by stars from Broadway. She, like
all Texans, enjoys the flamboyant, but she
never underestimates the feelings of her
guests.
Whatever she does as First Lady, it
cannot be denied that she comes to the office
with one of the most impressive backgrounds
in history. Who can match her for her
history as wife of the Senate Majority Leader
and Vice President of the United States?
But, as in every case of wives of Presi
dents of the United States, she will be
watched. That is inevitable, as she, probably
better than anybody, knows.
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WASHINGTON, D. C., NOVEMBER 24, 1%3
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This portrait of the Johnson family, taken earlier
this month by Fabian Bachrach, is the final selec
tion and the one ordered by „Lady Bird. The
Exclusively Yours, B-10
Dear Abby, B-15
—Stor Staff Photo by Randolph Routt
President is flanked by his two daughters, 19-
year-old Lynda Bird (left! and 16-year-old Lucy
Baines. —Photo by Bachrach.
B-9