When Lady Bird Johnson stops by the post office in Stonewall, Texas, to mail a letter, or waves to the tourists visiting the Johnson Ranch, or rides in the elevator of the LBJ Library in Austin, she is greeted with delighted smiles—sometimes of immediate recognition, sometimes of surprise—but always of pleasure. Her unassuming and invariably friendly presence is obviously one of the treasures of central Texas.

Claudia Alta Taylor was born on December 22,1912, in Karnack, a small Texas village near the Louisiana border. Her father was the town’s principal merchant, whose store carried the sign “T. J. Taylor—Dealer in Everything.” She picked up the nickname of Lady Bird as a child, and though she uses Claudia on legal documents, she has been called Lady Bird ever since. Her husband, in fact, who was amused by the fact that they had the same initials, usually called her simply Bird.

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