Ladybird Johnson was the wife of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Born as Claudia Alta Taylor, she married Johnson in 1934. LBJ was John F. Kennedy's vice-president, and became president when JFK was assassinated.
While she was First Lady, from 1963–1969, she successfully lobbied the government to have the land along the interstate highways seeded with native wildflowers and grasses.
She was a very successful entrepeneur and businesswoman,
who built a multi-million dollar broadcasting company, and managed ranches across Texas. She wrote an autobiographical book called "White House Diaries".
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas, and Clematis texensis, the Ladybird Johnson flower, are named after her.
I heard a great story about her while I was working in the University of Texas library. At some point when she was quite old, Ladybird Johnson was at a ceremony to celebrate an extensive planting of bluebonnets, the Texas State Flower. The bluebonnet is a member of the lupine family of flowers, and the speaker kept repeating the word "lupines". At some point Ladybird said loudly and deafly, "La Penis? Why is he talking about that? Penis penis penis! That's all they ever talk about!" No one could successfully convince her that the subject was actually flowers. Considering what her husband was like, this is no surprise!