TEXAS: LYNDON B. JOHNSON RANCH

 Tuesday, March 23, 2021

We began the next day with a three-hour drive to the LBJ Ranch in Stonewall, which is due west of Austin.

I am always on the look-out for good murals, and I made Bob stop for this one in Eden. Is that Eve? (Note: We actually did pass the Garden of Eden, but unfortunately it was not on Bob's agenda.)

We visited the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin in 2012 (although for some reason I never got around to writing about it here). On this trip, nine years later, we decided to visit the ranch where LBJ was born, lived a good part of his life, and was buried.

The LBJ Ranch is in Stonewall (yes, named after Confederate General Stonewall Jackson who died as a result of friendly fire in 1863). After paying our fees at the Visitors Center, we walked out to a living history farm based on a 1918 German farm. (Apparently there were lots of German settlers in this area. In fact, 15 miles away is a town named Fredericksburg that is full of German shops.) The farm was one of the better living history places we have visited. The volunteers work the farm and literally eat the fruits of their own labors.

We walked through quite a nice home . . .  

. . . that supposedly belonged to this friendly couple:

I wish I knew the story of this beautiful framed wreath hanging on the wall.

One of the bedrooms:

My favorite thing on the entire tour was the kitchen, or rather what was happening in the kitchen. One of the living history volunteers was baking a roast and some bread in a coal stove. When the food was done cooking, all the volunteers would be called into the kitchen for lunch. It smelled so good that I was ready to volunteer on the spot. The kitchen table also had milk in various stages of cheese making. Again, the volunteers make it and the volunteers eat it. Again, I wanted to be a volunteer!

Lots of other things in the house are made by the volunteers, including these corn husk dolls.

The vegetables in the storage room were grown in the garden outside the house by the volunteers and canned by, you guessed it, the volunteers. Since I couldn't have any of the canned goods, I had to settle for a treat I bought in the gift shop. (I have to say, my consolation selection was amazing, no doubt much better than the canned peas I saw on the shelf.)

Hey, guess what? Here's another one of the ubiquitous rusty 2-D bison. They are pretty cliché in Texas. 

The LBJ Birthplace is a reconstruction of the humble house where Lyndon was born on August 27, 1908, the first child of a state legislator and his wife, an educator and journalist. (There would eventually be five children, another boy and three girls. And by the way, Lyndon's brother was named Sam Houston Johnson.) Lyndon lived here for the first five years of his life. The original house was removed in the 1930s, but LBJ and Lady Bird had this house built on the property as a guest house for visitors. Apparently it is very similar to the original house.

The house is furnished with Johnson family furniture and other items. We couldn't go in, but we got a view through the glass.

They must have been pretty well-off, or maybe just pretty important, to have their own telephone in the early 1900s. 

Behind the house there is a shed and a bell I am assuming Lyndon's mom used to call the family to dinner.

Down the road is the one-room schoolhouse where four-year-old Lyndon went to school for a few months before a whooping cough epidemic closed the school. His family moved to a different property on the ranch during that time and Lyndon continued school in a different one-room school house closer to his new home.

Next stop: The Johnson Family Cemetery. Unlike other Presidential grave sites we have visited, these graves are surrounded by a fence and a locked gate. Apparently the family comes to visit occasionally.  Lyndon's great-grandmother was the first person to be buried here in 1905. Lyndon's father was buried here in 1937, and Lyndon himself joined his ancestors in 1973 when he had his third heart attack and passed away at home at age 64. Lady Bird Johnson outlived her husband by over 37 years, dying in 2007. They are surrounded by their parents, grandparents, siblings and their spouses, aunts, and uncles.

The large marker on the left decorated with a flower is Lady Bird's grave. (She was known for her work to protect wildflowers and for planting them along highways across the US. She said, "Where flowers bloom, so does hope.")  Lyndon's marker to the right of his wife's has the Presidential seal on it. I was surprised by their simplicity.

I love the large, spreading Southern live oaks that shade the graves.

Relative to other Presidential burial sites we have seen, this one is surprisingly unostentatious. 

We continued driving through the ranch. The gnarled limbs of trees reach across the asphalt to embrace each other.

Next stop, President Johnson's plane. Again, because of Covid, we were not allowed inside.

The plane is jokingly referred to as "Air Force One-Half" because of its small size. It is a 13-passenger Lockheed JetStar plane. We had to rely on photos at the site to get an idea of what it looks like inside.

Johnson created a landing strip right next to his home in 1951 when he was just a senator so that he had an easy way to go back and forth from Texas to Washington, D.C.  Because it is a relatively small landing strip, the Boeing 707 normally used for Air Force One couldn't land here. Johnson would fly in the 707 from D.C. to San Antonio and then fly "Air Force One-Half" the 70 miles to the ranch.

Speaking of The Ranch, apparently it still is one.

The home where LBJ and Lady Bird lived and raised their children is known as "The Texas White House."  Like everything else, it was closed for tours because of Covid. Lyndon and Lady Bird bought this house in 1957 from relatives. It was badly run-down, so they spent a year completing extensive renovations, then moved in with their two daughters, Lynda and Luci, in 1952.  

Photo from NPS website

(Interesting note: Lyndon loved his initials and had them embossed on everything. He also made sure they were used by his wife, Lady Bird Johnson--whose real name was Claudia--and two daughters, Lynda Bird Johnson and Luci Baines Johnson.) 

During the tumultuous years of his presidency, LBJ often flew home to work and recuperate. Records show that he lived here 490 days during his five-year presidency, about one-fourth of the time. According to one website, "As many as 15 phone lines and 72 rotary phones serviced the house, other ranch buildings and numerous vehicles. Every room in the main house, including Johnson's bathroom, had a telephone."

The last stop was LBJ's Boyhood Home, located in Johnson City. (Our journey around the ranch was obviously not chronological, as far as Lyndon's life was concerned.) LBJ's parents bought this 1901 frame home in 1913 when Lyndon was five years old. The Johnsons raised five children in this house. In 1937, the oldest of those children, Lyndon, launched his campaign for Congress, the first step in his ascent to the Presidency, from the East Porch.

The back of the house has a screened-in porch.

Well, time for lunch. We drove to Marble Falls, a city en route to our next destination. We stopped at a food truck where we ate some really good food--flatbread with artichokes, kimchi, arugula, and garlic aioli; tomato/cucumber salad; and truffle fries with parmesan cheese.