Presidential Biographies | Lyndon Johnson Administrations - Family Life

Family Life

Johnson was always ambitious and hardworking, but he found some time for socializing. As a result of a blind date he met and courted Claudia Alta Taylor. Johnson gave her the nickname "Lady Bird" Johnson, so that his wife and later his daughters (Lynda Bird and Luci Baines), would all have the LBJ monogram. Johnson proposed to Lady Bird only 24 hours after they met. She held him off for two months, but they were married on November 17, 1934, in San Antonio, Texas. Lady Bird was a loving wife and mother and also became a valuable political adviser to the sometimes overbearing Johnson. She also provided the family with financial stability. In the early 1940s she inherited $36,000, which became the basis of the Johnson family fortune. In 1943, while a member of Congress, Johnson used his influence, and that of powerful friends on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to permit Lady Bird Johnson to buy a small radio...