Lady Bird Johnson - A Difficult Life Lived in Confusing Times, With Grace

Lady Bird Johnson, who died today at the age of 94, was blessed with a long life.  But, from what her husband's biographers such as Robert W. Caro wrote, we can conclude her life was probably was not an easy one.  The traits that made her husband Lyndon Johnson a master politician also likely made him not the ideal spouse.  Yet, she went about things, at least in public, with grace.  There was none of that pinched look of resentment that other beleaguered First Lady Patricia Nixon seemed to carry around.

No question, Lady Bird Johnson was a woman of her time and for females, including her daughters, it was not the best of times.  I know.  Both in Snyder high school in Jersey City, NJ ('63) and in college at Seton Hill University ('67) in Greensburg, PA, I felt or maybe even was boxed-in to be, yeah, a lady, support system for Mr. Man, and to watch my weight, makeup and elocution.  As the feminist revolution took over when I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI ('68-72) the oughts imposed on women eased up but I was already too much of a confused mess to be my own person.

However, all that thou-shalt was most likely nothing compared to the packaging industry which must have taken over Lady Bird, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines. Moreover, the three were directly in the shadow of the widow of a martyred president.  There was no way to cultivate a self.   Here's hoping that mother and daughters could break out of that box as the spotlight faded and things did pick up some for us females.  How much they improved depended on what, yeah, our courage to change.  The odds are the Johnson women needed plenty of that.

Thanks, Mrs. Johnson, for beautifying America.