Lady Bird Johnson

Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson--December 22, 1912-July11, 2007

Claudia Alta Taylor was born in Karnack, Texas, a town in Harrison County, near the states border with Louisiana. Her birthplace was "The Brick House," a former slave plantation mansion on the outskirts of town which her father had purchased shortly before her birth. Nearly all of both her maternal and paternal forebears had arrived in the Virginia Colony during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Her father was a native of Alabama and primarily of English Ancestry with small amounts of Welsh and Danish; her mother was also a native of Alabama and of English and Scottish decent.

Lady Bird was the First Lady of the United States from 1963 until 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nations cities and highways. Leaving the White House in 1969 and her husband's death in 1973, Lady Bird became an entrepreneur, creating the $150 million LBJ Holdings Company, and was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest of civilian honors.