A few facts of our time here: The campground had 5 and 1/4 inches of rain in two days. We wished we could send it back to California. There was a question on the auction: seven people bid from $2000 to $5000 for six items with the money going to the Friends of the LBJ National Historic Park.
We started our tour in the LBJ State Park in Stonewall at the Sauer-Beckman Living History Farm.
The Sauer Family started their hill country farm in 1869. Over the years, they added to rock and log cabins, building with stone as they became more prosperous and as their family grew to ten children. One of the Saeur daughters was mid-wife for the first child of neighbors Sam Ealie Johnson and Rebeka Baines Johnson. That child became the thirty-sixth President of the United States.
The home had no electricity until the 1950s. The farm depicts its operation in the year of LBJ’s birth, 1908. In the kitchen, the scent of freshly baked cookies filled the air as the docent, spending her day as if it was early 1900s, explained the life of that time.
She demonstrated the wood burning stove.
The kitchen showed the new prosperity of Blue Willow china, though not all the pieces match as some were made in the US, some in China and England.
The smokehouse is filled with squash, sweet potatoes and meat.
Longhorn cattle rest
and turkeys and roosters strut.
The Sauers sold the home to the Beckman’s whose daughter donated it to the state park service.
We then drove to the National Park where we saw the Junction Schoolhouse where four-year-old Lyndon, already able to read, climbed in Miss Katy Deadrick’s lap to be closer to what was being taught.
Miss Katy sat at his side for the signing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The greatest lessons he got here were a deep respect for education and a commitment that all children should have access to good schools. During his terms he signed sixty education bills.
The next stop was his birthplace. Someone referred to his birthday as “the day LBJ discovered America.”
The home was torn town but has been rebuilt and is furnished in early 20th century style.
Near our parking spot at the Texas White House stands Air Force ½, the small jet plane that flew the Johnson’s from Austin where Air Force One landed to Stonewall.
The introductory video for the Texas White House spoke of the “Big House on the River,” the river being the Pedernales.
The Johnson’s bought it from his aunt and modernized it, including three televisions in almost any room that had a chair. The monogram LBJ, representing all four members of the family, is throughout the house. Both Lyndon and Lady Bird felt most at home on the ranch amid the flora and fauna they had known as children. They came here to re-energize. The President spent 490 days of his terms at the ranch. Heads of States visited and dined; bills were signed and cabinet meetings held. At no time was Johnson “out-of-touch” with the country with all those TVs.
In 1967 the family donated part of the ranch to the National Park Service though Lady Bird continued to live there until her death in 2007. All furnishings in the house are original. The 8400 square foot home was designed for comfort not show. The closets contain some of Lyndon and Lady Bird’s clothing, the dated 1960s and 1970s styles. They each died in the home and are buried in the family plot near his birthplace. No photos are allowed in the home.
We listened to more tapes from the White House. The call to Frank Stanton of CBS criticized the network’s coverage of the 1968 convention, accusing them of being under the control of the Kennedy family. Obviously, Johnson was Johnson until the end. He and Lady Bird are both buried in the family plot on the ranch.
Our visit to the ranch and to the library confirmed what we see as LBJ’s place in history, as a man who sincerely wanted to make America a better place but had one tragic failure, Vietnam.
No comments:
Post a Comment