Lady Bird Johnson Gave America A Big Bouquet

Lady Bird came from a generation of women who insisted on carrying out their wifely duties with dignity and professionalism, even as their husbands rebuked them, derided their appearance and took mistresses. To offer this traditional support to her husband during his presidency, she created the modern institutional apparatus of the first lady.

"She was the first to have a press secretary and chief of staff, and an expanded liaison with Congress and a structure to deal with outside groups," said Lewis Gould, author of "Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First Lady."

"She was the first to have somebody to advance her appearances and write her speeches, and you began to get the bureaucracy around the role. She was an activist."

Lady Bird had studied journalism at the University of Texas and hoped to be a reporter before her whirlwind courtship with Johnson changed all that, and so she "knew the language of the trade, the difference between an a.m. and p.m. deadline, and that it was better to be accessible than evasive," according to Liz Carpenter, her press secretary and longtime friend.

"My theory on Mrs. Johnson is that she decided as smart women did in Texas in the '30s that she was probably smarter than 90 percent of the guys she encountered, but if she let them know that, she was going to be in difficulty. She internalized that and felt that effectiveness was more important than credit," said Gould.

She was more intellectual than her often vulgar husband, and always better read. But she resented such distinctions. When historians suggested that their dynamic was bound in a bad Lyndon and a good Lady Bird, or that she had been humiliated by her husband's infidelities, she bristled.

"Lyndon loved everybody, and a little bit more than half of the world is women," Lady Bird told Life magazine. "I do know he wanted me most. I do know he liked me most. I can sum it up by saying that he and I were better together than either of us was apart.

"I haven't had an undue amount of pain inflicted by fate," she added, with her characteristic modesty.

Instead, she created a persistent beauty, coast to coast.