Thank you, Lady Bird

My daughter and I drove to North Carolina for the weekend, enjoying the wildflowers by the side of the highways along the way. Thank you, Lady Bird Johnson, for a great idea full of natural beauty. I would love to visit Texas and see the Blue Bonnets around the Lyndon Baines Johnson
Ranch when they are in bloom. I was hoping the Jenna Bush wedding photos had blue bonnets as a backdrop but I don't see any in the released photos. (Henry's father, Lt. Gov. John Hager, spoke at our Assist Pregnancy Center Banquet a few years ago.) I enjoy the beautification projects that Mrs. Johnson inspired here in the D. C. area as well. Here is an edited bio of my distant relative, Lady Bird.

Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson was born Claudia Alta Taylor in Karnack, Texas on December 22, 1912. She died in Austin, Texas on July 11, 2007 at the age of 94 and was buried beside her husband in the family cemetery at the LBJ Ranch in Stonewall, Texas.

Mrs. Johnson's father was Thomas Jefferson Taylor, owner of a general store who declared himself "dealer in everything." Her mother, Minnie Pattillo Taylor, died when the little girl was but five-years old. She had two older brothers, Tommy and Tony. After her mother's death, Mrs. Johnson's Aunt Effie Pattillo moved to Karnack to look after her. At an early age, a nursemaid said she was "as purty as a lady bird" -- thereafter she became known to her family and friends as "Lady Bird." Mrs. Johnson grew up in the "Brick House" and attended a small rural elementary school in Harrison County, Texas. She graduated from Marshall High School in 1928, and attended Saint Mary's Episcopal School for Girls in Dallas from 1928 to 1930.

Mrs. Johnson entered the University of Texas in 1930 and received a bachelor of arts degree in 1933 with a major in history. She earned a journalism degree in 1934. Many colleges and universities have awarded Mrs. Johnson honorary degrees. Throughout her life, she supported and was very interested in the activities of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, both located on The University of Texas campus in Austin.

After a whirlwind courtship, Claudia Alta Taylor and Lyndon Baines Johnson were married on November 17, 1934 at Saint Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio, Texas. Two daughters were born to the Johnsons: Lynda Bird Johnson (1944) (Mrs. Charles S. Robb) resides in Virginia; and Luci Baines Johnson (1947) (married to Ian Turpin) lives in Austin, Texas. Mrs. Johnson had seven grandchildren -- one boy and six girls -- and eleven great-grandchildren. President Johnson died at his beloved LBJ Ranch on January 22, 1973.

Mrs. Johnson was the author of A White House Diary, a record of her activities which she kept during the years her husband served as the 36th President of the United States. About writing A White House Diary, Mrs. Johnson said, "I was keenly aware that I had a unique opportunity, a front row seat, on an unfolding story and nobody else was going to see it from quite the vantage point that I saw it." She also co-authored Wildflowers Across America with Carlton Lees.

In 1977, President Gerald Ford presented Mrs. Johnson with this country's highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom. Mrs. Johnson received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Ronald Reagan in 1988.

First and foremost, Mrs. Johnson was an environmentalist, and she was an active worker on innumerable projects. In Washington, she enlisted the aid of friends to plant thousands of tulips and daffodils which still delight visitors to our nation's Capital. The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was the result of Mrs. Johnson's national campaign for beautification. In 1999, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt presented Mrs. Johnson with the Native Plant Conservation Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award. At that time he said, "Mrs. Johnson has been a 'shadow’ Secretary of the Interior' for much of her life."

Mrs. Johnson was honorary chairman of the LBJ Memorial Grove on the Potomac in Washington, D. C. On her 70th birthday in 1982, Mrs. Johnson founded the National Wildflower Research Center, a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the preservation and re-establishment of native plants in natural and planned landscapes. In December, 1997, the Center was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in honor of Mrs. Johnson's 85th birthday. In December 1972, President and Mrs. Johnson gave the LBJ Ranch house and surrounding property to the people of the United States as a national historic site, retaining a life estate in the Ranch. Mrs. Johnson continued to live at the Ranch in Stonewall, Texas until her death. She was a member of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.

Lady Bird or Claudia Alta Taylor was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Taylor III and Minnie Lee Patillo and 5 generations ago we shared grandparents, George Alexander Pattillo and Martha Varner. Here is some information on our common ancestor.

George Alexander PATTILLO Birth: 1720 in Dundee, Angus County, Scotland Death: 9 Jun 1798 in Lunenburg, Charlotte County, Virginia
" George Alexander Pattillo, b. ca. 1720 in Scotland; d. 9 June 1798, Charlotte Co., Va. Married Martha Varner (Varnor, Vernon) of Penn. in Va., 1 July 1757. She was b. 1 Feb. 1735.
George came from Dundee, Angus County, Scotland to America with his brother, Henry Pattillo in 1740. George and his younger brother, Henry, had supposedly been in Penn. before moving to Va. They were closely associated with a large group of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who had emigrated about 1734, by way of Penn., to the southern part of Virginia. The group we speak of settled in and around Cub Creek, Charlotte Co., then Lunenburg Co. John Caldwell seemed to be the leader of this particular group as the area near Cub Creek was known as the "Caldwell Settlement"(His grandson was Vice President John C. (Caldwell) Calhoun.) They helped establish Washington College and now Washington and Lee University and Hampden Sydney College.

It was located near Phenix near the Red Hill home of Patrick Henry. In 1742, the first log church was built as one of the first 6 churches of the first Presbytery of VA and it was used until 1820. The church was established in 1738 on more than 30,000 acres on Cub Creek by the colony of Scotch-Irish. In May 1739, John Caldwell got permission from the Synod of Philadelphia to ask the Governor of Virginia "with suitable instructions in order to procure ther favour of the government of that province to the laying a foundation of our interest in that place and to ask for the Colony Liberty of Conscience and the priviledge of worshiping God in a way agreeable to the principles of our education."

William Caldwell executed a deed, 2 Apr. 1751, in Lunenburg Co., Va., for the conveyance of one acre of ground on his land for a burial place to thirty-one men in his neighborhood. Among these men whose families we find closely associated with the Pattillo family were David Logan, James Logan, John Middleton, Isaac Vernon (Varner, Varnon) and Henry Pattillo. (Va. Hist. Mag., Vol. XVIII, pp. 40-41)

I hope you note that my claims to be Empress have some faint historic facts to support them. :)