This is just now coming out. It’s 4:42 pm. here in Austin and the Austin American-Statesman is reporting that Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon Baines Johnson has died at the age of 94. The article that just went online states that Johnson died at 4:18 p.m. this afternoon in her West Lake Hills (a suburb of Austin) home.

More: From the Statesman article linked above, I found this quote attributed to Lady Bird:

“Man and his needs are filling up the world. . . . Those needs are important,” she said, “but there is also room for beauty, for the bounty of nature itself is one of the deep needs of mankind.”

Rest in peace, Mrs. Johnson.

photo by Frank Wolfe, from the University of Texas

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center site is a great place to see the lasting work she did with the environment. Texas highways look as pretty as they do in the springtime because of her work promoting native flowers.

More information about official tributes to Mrs. Johnson - schedules, events, etc. - is available at the Lady Bird Johnson: Final Tribute site. (If it seems odd to have all this information ready to go within an hour of her death, Mrs. Johnson has not been in the best of health lately. Around here in Austin, we’ve known it was only a matter of time before she left us.

Back when Lyndon Baines Johnson was still alive and in political office, he was described by some as “a caged lion” always pacing around. That is, until Lady Bird was in his presence. She calmed him down and helped him focus. I’m sure it’s that way with women from other regions, but that’s a particularly Texas trait. Call it jingoistic or a tall tale, but Texas women have an ability to soothe their men just by being in the same room. Ms. Johnson exemplified that with her husband.

I imagine LBJ isn’t pacing any more.

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