152 – Your Purpose Can Change the World with Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird Johnson

In honor of March being Women’s History Month, I want to take you back in time.

We will be talking with Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of the 36th President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. Lady Bird Johnson’s life spans the 20th century from 1912-2007.

This is a century in which the role of women changed dramatically. Lady Bird herself said that her life was, “A part for which I never rehearsed.”

Rebecca Bloomfield has professionally presented famous women in history and performed at the Lyndon Johnson Library. Listen here as she describes being invited to a small dinner party with Lady Bird Johnson which led to her detailed knowledge of stories that had never been told. [41:59]

Lady Bird Johnson’s Story

How she got the name Lady Bird. [4:13]

With the loss of her mom, she was sent away. [5:28]

The Austin, TX college years. [7:52]

Meeting Lyndon. [8:56]

What a marriage proposal! [11:00]

Life on the campaign trail begins. [12:39]

The attack on Pearl Harbor changed Lady Bird Johnson’s role. [17:40], [22:28]

Segregation – things needed to change. [26:53]

Candle Flickering Moments

After WWII Lady Bird lost her purpose … but found a new one! [24:26]

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. [30:20]

Business Building Insights

Look to your talents. There are many ways to get to the same result. [15:42]

The Whistle Stop Train Campaign, another purpose for change in the country. [33:22]

Examples of results from seeking your purpose: The Beautify America Project and Head Start. [36:30]

Advice for women of today. [39:44]

Rebecca’s Triology of Historical Women Episodes

021 – A Lesson in Courage and Impact – Abigail Adams

125 – A Courageous Journey to American Back in 1841 – Elizabeth Meyer

152 – Your Purpose Can Change the World – Lady Bird Johnson

Contact Links

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Thanks! Sue
Transcript
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You're listening to gift biz on rapt episode 151.

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So how do you,

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when you have a purpose fulfill what you're supposed to do

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Attention gifters bakers,

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crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

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Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.

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Now you are in the right place.

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This is give to biz unwrapped,

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helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

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Join us for an episode,

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packed full of invaluable guidance,

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resources, and the support you need to grow.

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Your gift biz here is your host gift biz gal,

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Sue Mon height in honor of him March being women's history

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month. I want to take you back in time.

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We will be talking with Ladybird Johnson,

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the wife of the 36th president of the United state Lyndon

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B Johnson Ladybird Johnson's life spans the 20th century from 1912

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to 2007.

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This is a century in which the role of women changed

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dramatically. Ladybird herself said that her life was apart for which

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I never rehearsed.

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So as not to interrupt the continuity of this fabulous interview,

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I'm just going to insert here a message from our sponsor.

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Create custom ribbons right in your store or craft studio in

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for more information,

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Please join me in welcoming Ladybird Johnson to be with us

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here today.

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Well, thank you so much,

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Sue. I'm so pleased to be with you today.

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I am so honored that you've taken some time to share

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with us today,

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and I want to start out our talk as I always

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do. And that is by having you share what a candle

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would look like that really resonates with you.

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And what I mean by that is if you were to

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pick a special color that would be on your candle and

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then a saying,

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or a motto or something that always drives you forward,

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what would this candle look like by color?

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And word Candle would be yellow,

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like Texas yellow star and Lord cups,

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and four nerves.

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The flowers are planted by the hundreds in the Hill country

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of Texas.

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And then there was local yellow flowers that are planted along

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the highways across the country.

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When we did a beautiful America program.

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I love that because my favorite color is yellow too.

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What would be the quote or a motto or something that

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you've used in your life that you would put on that

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yellow candle?

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I think it would be sometimes the greatest courage in the

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room is to get up and get dressed and go to

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work. Why do you say Because we women have jobs that

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a day of the moment of taking care and sometimes many

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times you have to put aside any tiredness and sadness and

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you have to just get up,

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get dressed and go to work.

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That's how we take care of.

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So don't even second.

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Guess it,

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just get moving and do your intention,

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what you're supposed to be doing.

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Exactly. You know,

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I wouldn't have thought of that from a woman from your

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day, but I think that whole statement resonates for us today

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as well.

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Well, you see,

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when I started out,

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I needed to develop my own purpose.

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I had no purpose,

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but we'll talk more about that.

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I'm sure.

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Yes, we will for sure.

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But first I want to take it from the beginning and

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I'm really curious.

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How did you get the name Ladybird?

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Well, I was born December 22nd,

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1912 in<inaudible> the only brick house for miles around.

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And when I was born,

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my mammy,

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Alice turtle was the first to wash me.

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She looked into my dark eyes and she says,

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why she's is pretty decent lady bird.

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And that name stuck with me ever since.

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Aw, but wait a minute.

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I have to ask you a question.

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Did I just hear you say mammy kind of like in

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gone with the wind?

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Oh yes.

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The world was there and much like post civil war days

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in its gentility in its hi,

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my father Thomas Jefferson Taylor had swept my mother meaningly Taylor,

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white of a fine family and Billingsley Alabama,

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instead of her in Karnack Texas only brick house moms around,

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he had a store that said dealer and everything.

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And he was in that part of the world in built

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and everything,

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including politics.

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So let's get to the role that you played because this

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is so interesting.

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And I'm sure we're going to have a lot of depth

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to this here.

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Did you have any role models to prepare you for being

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the vice president's wife?

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And then the first lady?

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Not at all.

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My mother was a tall lady of refinement.

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She walked quite a lot,

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launch Panama hats with brands.

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She went to Chicago each year to hear the opera.

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She sometimes went to bed or Creek,

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Michigan for cure.

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And then when I was six years old,

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she tripped over a small father,

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dog and failed battle,

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long flight of stairs.

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She was pregnant and miscarried food poisoning in and before I

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knew it,

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she was gone,

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Oh my,

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so it's six years old.

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Then I was gone.

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My older brothers,

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they are living in the eight years older than I,

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and they were away at school.

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So my father sent me to my mother's family,

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to my aunt and people to that.

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And if it was the most over worldly woman that I

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had ever known,

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she painted,

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she played the piano.

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She taught me all about the wild flowers and we would

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go and have imaginary visits among the Ferris who lived out

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there. But she could not teach me practical things when I

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was in school.

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Like what way or how to make friends.

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And that certainly never happened.

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I don't think I ever met a woman who actually lived

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in the 20th century until I went to college in Austin,

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Texas. And I met my first real friend.

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You junior Berenger new Jean.

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Yeah. She was like,

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Carrie's in my life.

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She taught me to look and see what my talents were.

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She encouraged me perhaps to become a journalist.

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I almost say I liked that because I learned to use

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a camera and I could go all the places you,

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you went,

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but I could stay behind my camera.

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Then I didn't really have to come out.

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And people,

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you know,

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it's because of Jean that I actually met.

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Lyndon Johnson.

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Want to hear that story?

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But I do have a question for you first.

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It seems so courageous to even go off to college in

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Texas. How did you decide that that was going to happen?

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Most women at that time didn't really go to college yet?

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No, it was decided for me.

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I remember the school in feelings really when I was 13,

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but I was too young to really go for college.

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So I was put in a<inaudible> school and the people,

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they were really kind to me and they understood that I

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had never really had a mother and they with my father

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decided that I would go to college in Austin.

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My father sent me off with a shiny black Buick.

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I was 17 years old and a charge account that Neiman

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Marcus. And while I may have looked rather sophisticated,

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I knew nothing of the world.

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I'd still say that word.

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It's pretty courageous.

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Even though you knew that that was what you were going

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to have to do to go ahead and go and then

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make your way in the world is amazing.

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So you met Eugena and then you Lyndon tell us that

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story. After college,

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I had all manner of dreams of what I might do

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as a journalism.

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Jean had encouraged me to take shorthand and typing.

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She got a job in a Congressman Greenberg's office in Austin,

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but I was still too frightened of the world.

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I went back home,

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nobody had paid any line to my father's house since my

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mother's death.

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And I decided that I would remodel it,

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which also gave me the opportunity to go to Austin often.

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And I was in Jean's office.

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When this man came in,

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he was tall and dark.

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Hadn't had more energy than any man that had ever seen

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except my father.

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And he had come there because he had a date with

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one of the girls in the office.

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He looked at me in a certain way and he looked

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at his date and they lifted.

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Jean invited us all to come out with him.

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And then he took me home life.

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Well, not really.

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He dropped me off at the hotel and he is,

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but the scan of the words and the perhaps made me

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meet him for breakfast in the hotel the next day.

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And I did,

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I had an appointment with an architect first and he waited

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for him and during the appointment,

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and then he took me for a ride and he told

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me the most amazing thing all about his family.

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And he used the ambition and his age education,

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and we spent four or five days talking.

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I decided he should meet daddy.

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And I brought him back to Khan,

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AQ, and I could see that it was quite impressed by

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this fella.

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And then Lyndon had to go back with Congressman Kleberg to

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Washington. He was also in that school there,

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but he wrote to me and he telephoned me and I

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got letters and calls every day.

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And he kept asking me to marry him.

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And I talked to my friends and they said,

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well, wait,

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you hardly know the man.

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And I went to talk to Jeannie and all that again.

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And while I was there,

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when then came forth to the hotel early in the morning,

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I'm not,

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I am not there early in the morning.

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And he had gotten his friend,

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Dan Quayle,

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who was a postmaster to arrange a marriage license and a

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rector edit and a piece of paly and church.

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And for that afternoon he said,

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take her away.

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But So he really took control.

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How did you feel about that?

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I suppose I was used to man taken control and I

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was smitten with this towel bundle of energy.

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I, Paul Jean and a few other friends.

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They met us at the church and I had a reading

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from the Sears and Roebuck across the street.

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I've never been good to see the marriage license for me

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is I was afraid we were not legally married.

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I think it wasn't until our 20th anniversary,

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then you're spraying produce it for me.

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There I was a wife who had never cooked a meal

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with her life or higher two rings a finger for anybody

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mother sale.

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Well, it was clearly the right decision because you stayed married

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for quite a while,

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but how did you stay married to that bundle of energy?

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That was Linden?

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Well, Linden decided that he would run for Congress.

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I borrowed against my inheritance to help him.

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And some other people pitched in and now I was given

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things to do on the campaign trail.

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And I was given a purpose.

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My purpose was to keep my husband's shirts pressed and to

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talk to people and stand up and address crowd.

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I was good at the first.

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I learned how to do that,

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but I was not so good at the second,

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but I had a purpose.

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So how do you,

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when you have a purpose fulfill what you're supposed to do

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now, Landon had always said that it really was not important

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for you to know exactly how you were going to accomplish

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what you set out to do.

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You simply have to look inside yourself and see what your

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talents are and then use them to the best of your

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ability to get,

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to fulfill the purpose you had set out to come to

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you. Wow.

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That is a really interesting point because just as women of

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today, you're really not successful.

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Unless you drive to a certain goal,

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you have some type of vision.

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And I think what I'm hearing you say,

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lady bird is you weren't necessarily sure how you were going

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to get there,

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but you knew what the purpose was.

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Yes. So that was the whole thing to know what the

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purpose is.

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So if the purpose was to get boots,

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I decided I could take my car,

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my little black Buick and drive a town ahead or two

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where Lyndon was going to come through and I would stop.

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And I would get one gallon of gas.

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Now, in those days,

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when you got gas,

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they wash your windshield,

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checked the pressure in your tires,

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they check your oil while they were doing that.

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I would speak to the man,

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cause they're always man,

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sit from the gas station,

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tell him who I was,

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who Landon was hand for literature,

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give them all a big Tam devote fully and then,

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and drive out to the next gas station.

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I'm always better at that time talking to one or two

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people, then the dozens or hundreds I was asked to.

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And that's how I fulfilled my purpose and have landed.

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And I got to Washington.

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So did you already have this strategy when you set off

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or did it evolve as you stopped for gas and you

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saw an opportunity and said,

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Hey, I'm going to spread the word.

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And then it became a plan.

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Then that was your strategy,

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your campaign plan,

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Where it started,

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because I could not fulfill the purpose of speaking to the

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group, too many people.

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So it was a different way to get the same results.

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Exactly. There are often many ways and I have learned that

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over my lifetime.

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Sometimes the world tells you Madam,

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that tactic is not going to work.

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So you look to your talents.

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Well, what are my talents and how can I use them

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to do this differently?

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When we got to Washington,

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for instance,

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a congressman's wife was posed to have a lot of teams

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with all the congressmen wives,

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with the senators wives,

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with the wives of the diplomatic Corps,

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it was driving me mad.

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I am change.

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But then I saw that in politics,

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constituents come,

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first constituents is spelled all in capital letters.

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So what did constituents need?

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When they came to Washington,

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they needed a host to take them to learn and order

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the Lincoln Memorial,

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all the cherry trees and lots of things that I love

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and that I had a tailor to learn about.

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And so in that wing map purpose in being a representative,

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why was to help his career and keep his constituents,

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appreciating him.

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And if I could show our appreciation for them,

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by taking them around,

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I met so many wonderful people.

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I learned so many wonderful things.

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It was my way of getting to the purpose by using

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my talents.

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We're so smart because you used what naturally you felt comfortable

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with and your skills and not everyone has that skill of

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being a hostess and the social one-on-one and touring and all

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of that.

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So that was brilliant lady bird,

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But I didn't know it was brilliant.

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I didn't know that anybody else could use it.

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Quill really had to take a deep breath was after Pearl

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Harbor, Landon like many other congressmen and enlisted.

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Right. And I knew that I was chosen to be continuity

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in his office.

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I did have some money.

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Hey, and I could write a good letter.

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I don't think anybody expected much more me than that.

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That's what women do.

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Just wouldn't gene had done back in Austin,

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but I assume so that there were things that were not

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being done constituents.

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We're going to suffer for it.

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People would write and the mother would want to know what

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her stainless son was.

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And a farmer was upset.

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Cause he was,

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I'm afraid that the rural electrification project wouldn't be go ahead

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because of the war,

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people needed rooms.

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And they needed to know things about where taxes were going

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to help their particular part of our congressional district.

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And so I had to move into a whole new set

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of skills because my purpose was to be continuity.

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My purpose was to have things ruined as well in smoothly.

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And for the benefit of our constituents,

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is it Landon was there himself.

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Women were strong and powerful as wives at this time and

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not particularly in their own.

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And the amazing thing that happened is that I found that

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I could do this.

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I saw it for the first time that I could actually,

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if a woman to earn my own living,

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I could live my own life.

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I could leave,

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Oh, the people to do what they had to do.

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I certainly did so problems wrong way.

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I could never use Linden's method.

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And if I was a squeaking wheel,

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I was a wheel that squeaked very politely.

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And that is a very good thing.

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And for your self esteem,

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when you understand that you might have a place in the

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world. Now I have to tell you at this time I

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still didn't have any children.

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I had four miscarriages and a tubular pregnancy,

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but I was having a tremendously exciting vital life.

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And that is good to know that you yourself,

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beside from a man,

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Hey capabilities.

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I found that out rather than to my amazement purpose,

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defined by being Lyndon Johnson's wife for a lot of beliefs.

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So at that time,

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not so unusual for other women at that time.

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That's what I saw around me.

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But I must tell you that it was about to change

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for me and for other women.

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You see who hope I happened,

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world war CIMA started and Leander like many other congressmen.

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Like many of the American man just went and volunteered for

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the army and left their jobs.

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And Linden left me the job to be the continuity in

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his office.

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Now a handsome show of hand.

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And I had typing and I could write a good letter.

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That's what women did in man's offices.

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But I soon found that things were not being done to

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help our constituents like,

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Oh, a woman would write to us and frantically asking where

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her stainless son was on a farm or would ask,

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would he electrification of his farm be delayed because of the

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war. People needed to know that there was still tax money

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coming their way for rooms and water,

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other projects.

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And I knew all of Brandon's brands,

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all his network.

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And I knew how to pick up a telephone or vote

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about offices and talk to them.

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I mean,

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a Habs,

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I was a squeak in whale,

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but I was a squeaky wheel my way.

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I could never do it the way Liam did.

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And so we got things done.

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You know,

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you don't come across to me as having that bravado.

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Did you just feel like you had no choice,

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but to step up?

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So you just did it.

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Yes. My purpose was to make the office continue the way

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it had when Landon was there and that meant doing things

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for our constituents.

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And I found as I did it that I really could

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do it.

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It was,

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as Lyndon said,

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I didn't know when I started out exactly how I was

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going to accomplish my purpose.

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And I started with the parents I had and I went

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on and I realized if it was ever necessary,

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I could make my own living.

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And that's a good feeling to hire.

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That's very good for you and for your self esteem and

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for your place in the world,

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You share a good message for all of us here.

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And that is in the beginning.

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You might have questioned,

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but you did anyway.

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And then the success of having done that led to more

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confidence, which in turn led to a higher level of doing

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and it just kept progressing from there.

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Well, yes,

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and it was so important to me to see that things

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were being done.

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Our newspaper in our districts said that instead of reelecting,

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Landon to Congress in absentia,

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they should call a convention and nominate Mrs.

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Bending. Wow.

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It was wonderful because I didn't have any home-based like other

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women did.

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I had had four miscarriages at a tubular pregnancy during the

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years of our marriage,

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but I realized I by myself had tremendously excited by life

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and I didn't have to have any home base so to

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speak. And it's good to know that you yourself was that

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from a man.

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So capabilities.

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I found that to my amazement.

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Right. And so how Did things carry on from there?

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Well, Linden came home and he thanked me profusely and profoundly

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and then told me I didn't have to go down to

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the office,

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the NMO,

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but now you loved what you were doing.

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Yeah. And it was not available to me anymore.

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I had lost my purpose.

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And so I decided that I would use my experience in

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one, to be a journalist.

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And I would find a newspaper in Austin,

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Texas. And instead I found a radio station and I went

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down to Austin and this radio station had own corrected bills

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and advertisers who never paid.

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And I used from knowledge.

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Then my uncle Claude,

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the cello had given me about finance and how you had

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to collect your receivables,

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you know,

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to pay for your bills.

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I put that radio station into a position where I was

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actually making money,

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but Linden for me to come home.

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Now I had a choice to make,

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did I stay in Austin or did I go home to

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this man?

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And I decided I really loved me.

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And he told me more dreams that he would have about

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becoming a Senator.

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And I had to find a new purpose as it happened.

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I got pregnant,

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I got pregnant twice.

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I had my beautiful daughters and I found that while I

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was home,

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I could still build more radio stations and television was permanent.

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And I could manage my stations and my television stations and

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my family at the same time.

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And it was wonderful.

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So that became my purpose.

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And I used all my talent to do that.

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But now you did become one of the great women in

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politics. Well,

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in 1955,

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Landon had a big purpose.

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He saw that the South could not continue segregated.

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He saw that Bob being segregated businesses would not come to

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the South.

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That population was leaving and go and know that the South

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was becoming the same kind of program.

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It had been before the civil war.

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And he started to change that.

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Of course,

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he had tremendous resistance,

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so much resistance that he had a heart attack and the

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called me and I rushed to the hospital and you know,

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to see someone not in their own,

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right. And I thought I might lose him.

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And I decided at that time they needed my care.

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He needed my attention and that I was willing to make

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my purpose to achieve and Hughes purpose.

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You know that in 1957,

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Linden spent 32 things on a court in the Congress trying

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to get the equal education has.

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And I brought him meals and I brought him clean clothes.

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And then of course,

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shortly after that,

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he was chosen randomly for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

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And I met those Kennedy women.

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I was in some tall call.

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And for the first time I did what I had never

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done. I joined the Capitol speakers club.

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I was in my late forties.

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And I took lessons in how to give us things,

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how to Olga,

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how to pace your delivery,

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how to wait for applause and laughter.

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And we hit the campaign trail.

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We certainly did that.

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We won that election.

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And what a proud time that was I'm sure.

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Yes, of course it's certainly worth,

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I was so proud of playing them and where we had

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come. And I will tell you that we went all around

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the world and we would be signing guests books.

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And in front of me would be people from other countries.

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A woman would be signing lady this and lady that,

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and I must tell you,

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I felt at all,

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it's fine.

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And lady bird,

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But that's what you were known as.

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That's right.

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That's what I was known as I could never lose lady.

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But yeah.

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And I love the progression of your life story because you

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continued to look for more surmountable things,

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more things that challenged you,

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that you could overcome.

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It started from the beginning,

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just having a purpose in the place and then building your

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confidence as you took over and then going through the election

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and then the radio stations and all of that.

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And your whole life was just building on top of itself

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and giving you more and more confidence.

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And I'm quite sure more and more pride,

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which then allowed you,

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when you decided you wanted to switch your purpose to support

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your husband and the campaign.

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You were even a stronger woman at that point.

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Well thank you for saying that,

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Susan, but it is,

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you can't stay at home in bed.

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You got to get dressed and go to work.

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This sounds great,

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but I don't think we can overlook the assassination.

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Yeah. The day had started her up.

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So there was sunshine and the streets were lined with people,

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families, children,

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with flags and FICA.

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And then suddenly they went and Linden secret service man came

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over the back of the car.

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He shoved me to the floor and put his body across

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the landing and I could barely breathe.

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And then we would go on fast.

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So very,

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very fast.

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And then we stopped suddenly in the hustle Vivian side.

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And I knew that we were in a hospital and Lyndon

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said, go find Jackie and Millie Connolly.

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The husbands have been shot.

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So I want to be long what corridors until I found

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Jackie outside operating room,

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she was quite alone.

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She looked like a right,

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as you might expect that I hold her.

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And then when I stepped back,

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I saw that her pink suit was to prove it in

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her husband's blood had gloves and one leg.

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And she said,

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I want them to see what they have done.

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You've seen pictures of me on the airplane standing next to

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Linden when he has taken the oath of all.

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But I am not there.

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I have retreated to someplace where none of this is happening.

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It is quiet.

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And I am by myself instead of surrounded by people in

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morning, it was a place I went to after my mom

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or dad,

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but I couldn't stay there there,

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no, because there were changes that had to be made and

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they would changes of a domestic.

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So housing children,

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decorations for Christmas had to come down and morning had to

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go up and we had to move and the Kennedy's and

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Mrs. Kennedy and her children that was all needed for retention.

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You could not stay in bed.

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You had to get up,

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get dressed and go to work.

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And then in a very short time,

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Linda had to decide if was going to ruin for president

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again. And he asked me after this mass sale to help

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him room for president.

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And I wrote him,

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I said,

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beloved, you are as brave a man as Harry Truman or

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FPR Lincoln,

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you can go on to finish some peace and some achievement

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amidst all the pain.

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You are strong patient determined beyond words of mind to experience

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and a awning for just spit out now would be wrong

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for your country.

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And so I joined him in that struggle and I found

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in that purpose,

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something I had never,

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ever found before.

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And what was that?

Speaker:

I decided I would have a whistle stop campaign.

Speaker:

Harry Truman had done it in the forties.

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The train would leave Washington DC,

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go through the South and come back.

Speaker:

And we would stop at small towns and bring our message

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of change in the country of bringing peace of integrating everybody.

Speaker:

But the men would not really get a port.

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The lady bird special sensitive was suddenly too busy.

Speaker:

Congressman couldn't see me now the most wonderful press secretary name

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is Results carpenter.

Speaker:

And Liz was just a bundle of energy.

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And she said,

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no lady,

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but if the man won't help us,

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the women would do it.

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And for the first time I had a team,

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I had a team with live.

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I had a team with Kennedy.

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I had a team working with me and Kayla breezy,

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Marjorie, Megan,

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the mayor,

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Senator Byrd,

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wouldn't come on a train,

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but don't order it.

Speaker:

And I found that,

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wow, the mayor of a small town or the sheriff or

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commissioner of a County,

Speaker:

wasn't so willing to come forward with their wives were they

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came from God and clubs and church groups.

Speaker:

And so in circle,

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we started out on the Ladybird special.

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I remember we got to one pound at six in the

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morning and a woman came up on the back car where

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I was standing and shook my hand.

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She said,

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you know,

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I go there at two o'clock in the morning to milk

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all my cows and do my chores.

Speaker:

So I could come here with her.

Speaker:

And I knew that I was the closest she would ever

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come to her government,

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but she considered herself an American,

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a citizen.

Speaker:

She proud to be the heart of this whole democracy.

Speaker:

And that women had to realize that and join in that.

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And they were ready,

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women and able to do that.

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Everything, those four days are most proud of the most fulfilling,

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the most wonderful days of my who Just as you were

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talking about the change in you,

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when you found your purpose,

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that's exactly what you were doing for all of those women

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too. Yeah.

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I tried.

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I had to find something to do now,

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Jackie Kennedy,

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if say that they're hot.

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Oh, with being the woman to redo the white house,

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the people's house,

Speaker:

but they're what were my family.

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My parents were no one about why I flopped and Effie

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came forward and me.

Speaker:

And so we started the beautified America project and then Brendan

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has the war on poverty.

Speaker:

And that started headstock and March tomorrow,

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consternation that the rural schools where the children were going,

Speaker:

will be in straightened by men with guns and bombs.

Speaker:

And so I went there when to say,

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Hey, these are all,

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Oh, I have children.

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And we have to think them.

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And we have to educate them,

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come on women.

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The men can't come forward with their guns.

Speaker:

And they'll bomb.

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You tell them who is in charge of these children.

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Women came out and they did that.

Speaker:

And they would form a ring circle around school where I

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was visiting.

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And I must tell you,

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there were many times when a faith for the womb meant

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the face of a man and he took two steps back.

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Wow. That was courageous.

Speaker:

The hardest part of that though,

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thanks to faith and meeting civility came during the Vietnam war.

Speaker:

It was eaten Landon alive.

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If we win even outside the planet have,

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Hey, Hey,

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it'll be J harmony.

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It was off.

Speaker:

It was terrible.

Speaker:

And I saw that he was shrink.

Speaker:

He was dying bad bit.

Speaker:

And so in March,

Speaker:

not teen six to eight,

Speaker:

I wrote into a speech that he was about to give,

Speaker:

will not see no,

Speaker:

will I expect the nomination of my party or president of

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the United States.

Speaker:

I didn't know what he was on.

Speaker:

The speech began on television.

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And sure.

Speaker:

I know that's what he's saying.

Speaker:

And I just praying that we could make it through almost

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a moving here because you see,

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I found the wheelchair that Woodrow Wilson had used after he'd

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had a stroke in office.

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I knew that Linden could never do that and I couldn't

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do it either.

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And we can't have the day and we could read the

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why it happened and go back to the Hill country of

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Texas. That's what we did.

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And as you reflect back on that time,

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what would you say about all of that?

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The courage and the challenge and the horrors that you saw,

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but also the significant changes you made in the impact on

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the world.

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What would you say with all your wisdom to women of

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today? Women have more power today.

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Women have more team,

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more other women to spring.

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And with more men who are willing to accept a woman,

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not just a member of a team,

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but a woman,

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a leader of the team.

Speaker:

And so you must get up,

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get dressed and get to work to a purpose in what

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you need to do and your talents and your team.

Speaker:

You know,

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moving. When I started out that real Linden,

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we would achieve the civil rights act of 64,

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the voting rights act of 65,

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the open house in the acts of 68,

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60 separate bills,

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making the federal government active partner in education,

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the war on poverty with four separate programs,

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including headstart,

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Medicare, and the job Corps,

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the national endowment for the arts,

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the national endowment for the humanities,

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you clean air and water standards,

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increase Parkland speed thing per se,

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and got a nuclear nonproliferation treaty signed and salt talks scheduled.

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And just do that because that's your purpose.

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It's humbling to hear you list all of the accomplishments and

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who talk about having to your purpose through life.

Speaker:

And it isn't easy,

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but look at,

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by standing up,

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getting out of bed every day,

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like you're saying all that was able to be accomplished.

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Thank you.

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So, so things that you allowed me this opportunity to tell

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this story and to tell women of America,

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ham, or China,

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and how I pray that they create that purpose for them

Speaker:

sale and fulfill it as Wyatt.

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Thank you so very much for spending your time with us

Speaker:

lady, bird Johnson.

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I so appreciate it.

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Thank you.

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So you have just heard about the life of lady bird

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Johnson enacted by Rebecca Bloomfield.

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Rebecca has a passion for portraying the lives of famous women

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in American history.

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In fact,

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Rebecca, I believe you've actually met Ladybird Johnson.

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Yes I did.

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So I was portraying Abigail Adams and was asked to do

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that at the Lyndon Johnson library.

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And Mrs.

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Johnson invited me to have dinner with her.

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I thought it was like a friends of the library and

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there'd be hundreds of people there,

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but there were only 16 people there,

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lady bird Linda's speech writer who was now head of the

Speaker:

library lives carpenter for press secretary.

Speaker:

Was there one of the Rob granddaughters and her fiance and

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two congressmen and their wives who had known lindens since 38.

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And they told stories about her that even the granddaughter didn't

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know about her courage and how remarkable the woman she was.

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And then I got access to the library to create this

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presentation. So you had done the presentation about Abigail and they

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saw it and then you got invited to dinner that had

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to be incredible.

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Did she have any idea or did you know at the

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time that you'd be doing the same thing for lady bird?

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No. I had to ask permission and I did,

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and then I got access to it.

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Very interesting.

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When I created Abigail,

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they were directly from her letters and her words and her

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thoughts and her feelings,

Speaker:

but much of the news reporting and what was available superficially

Speaker:

about lady bird was managed news.

Speaker:

And often at one of these headstart openings,

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it would tell about the flowers they gave her or who

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baked the cake,

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but not about what was going on outside.

Speaker:

And fortunately the library had news reports and we're audio taping.

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People's recollections of lady bird and the Johnson.

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And I got to hear from them how they interacted with

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her and what she gave to them,

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What an enriching and rewarding thing to do.

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It had to be so interesting to uncover all of that

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and then to be able to relay it to all of

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us, because I'll tell you interviewing lady bird.

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I mean,

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I felt like I really was going back gift biz listeners.

Speaker:

This is the third time Rebecca has been on the gift

Speaker:

biz unwrapped podcast.

Speaker:

She has done her portrayal of Abigail Adams that was back

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in episode 21.

Speaker:

And we also did a wonderful woman named Elizabeth Meyer who

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came over to America from Switzerland.

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So we learned all about her journey and the life of

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someone who decides that they're going to leave and go to

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an unknown land that we now inhabit.

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Both of those are going to be on the show notes

Speaker:

page. Along with this Rebecca,

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we've made kind of a little triad of historical stories.

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Now I thank you so much for that.

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It's wonderful.

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Thank you for the afternoon.

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I'd love for you to share with us right now.

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What else you do with your life?

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Talk a little bit about your professional career.

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Well, I get to work with a lot of women because

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of my husband,

Speaker:

Jerry Perlstein.

Speaker:

I have a unique agency that offers health life long-term care,

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disability and retirement programs to people who are independent entrepreneurs,

Speaker:

sole practitioners,

Speaker:

artists, and I have a particular passion that every woman should

Speaker:

have her own long-term care insurance life and long-term care insurance.

Speaker:

And so I go out among women,

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seeing what they do,

Speaker:

seeing how we can keep them safe and give them the

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cash they need for a long and wonderful life.

Speaker:

Someone wanted to know more about you from that angle,

Speaker:

where should they go?

Speaker:

They can go to our website,

Speaker:

J Pearlstein ltd.com.

Speaker:

They can email me our bloomfield@jpearlsteinltp.com.

Speaker:

And I'd be happy to talk about how a woman gets

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her purpose and keeps it going.

Speaker:

Go, thank you so much.

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I think this was so important because I love the part

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of lady bird story,

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where she discovered that she needed a purpose in the first

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place. And then she kept defining it and revising it as

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things happened in her life.

Speaker:

But she always still seemed to have that beacon of purpose.

Speaker:

And that's what drove her the whole way.

Speaker:

It's a great message for us gift biz listeners.

Speaker:

I challenge you to think and to really be able to

Speaker:

very concretely define what is your purpose,

Speaker:

because we can all accomplish great things here.

Speaker:

And Rebecca,

Speaker:

you have accomplished great things in portraying these women.

Speaker:

We know them in a whole different way now than we

Speaker:

might have by reading a little story here or there.

Speaker:

You've really brought for sure lady bird,

Speaker:

as well as the others to life for us.

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Thank you.

Speaker:

That's my purpose.

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There you go.

Speaker:

Thank you once again,

Speaker:

Rebecca Bye-bye thank you.

Speaker:

This episode is all wrapped up,

Speaker:

but fortunately,

Speaker:

your gift biz journey continues.

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Are you eager to learn more?

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Our gift biz gal has a free download just for you.

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