Letter, Lady Bird Taylor to Lyndon Johnson, 10/1/1934?

Specific Item Type:

Correspondence

Type:

Text

Format:

Paper

Identifier:

pp-ctjandlbj-letters-ctj-10-1-34

Date:

1934-10-01

Date Note:

Precise date uncertain: extrapolated here by LBJ Library archives staff

Time Period:

Pre-Presidential (Before Nov. 22, 1963)

Transcript:

[Written on BIRD TAYLOR stationery]
[October 1, 1934 ?]
Monday Nite
My Dearest Lyndon –
And so another week has begun! They roll around with such celerity now--what happens to them? Do yours?
Here’s what Charles Ethel of Cotulla, a good friend, of mine, said in her last letter--verbatim!: “Bird, I have some news for you about the said Lyndon Johnson. I know him slightly as he used to be down here in Cotulla. I was sort of “youngish” and was in high school so I didn’t know him very well. He was quite young too when he was down here. Everybody
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down here likes him and says he is brilliant, so I think you’re lucky!”
This morning after breakfast I went down to Dorris’ and we hied forth in search of cape jasmine bushes and a little magnolia and jonquil bulbs, me thinking I could find them somewhere --and in the florists’ sketch they are quite numerous and expensive. We walked through the woods to the old Haggerty place--site of an old colonial mansion, now quite dilapidated and doleful looking.
It always gives me a very poignant feeling to go over there….It must have been a lovely place--there are the tallest magnolias
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I’ve ever seen, and great Liveoaks, and myriads of crepe myrtle, and a carpet of jonquils and flags in the Spring. But some of the trees have rotted and fallen down and there is a clutter of underbrush and only the main bottom logs--an outline of the house remains…there are some half dozen or more fine marble tombstones in disarray in the old family graveyard. Folks tell that old Speyer Haggerty buried gold in the vaults of the graves and I think they have been dug up and disturbed for that reason. The last one was buried in 1859.
One day almost six years ago, in the spring of ’29--Gene and I happened to walk over there and that is where our friendship began.
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I’m so glad Gene wrote a sweet letter. I do love for us all to love each other, don’t you?!
It’s getting quite cold. We’d a fire tonight…it makes it cosy --but I mourn the passing of summer. I’m never completely happy from October until March!
Darling, I can’t wait for my books to come! I shall begin looking for them Thursday morning.
In all sincerity, Lyndon, I believe I miss you more all the time.
Tomoro there are one dozen things to do that will keep me very busy, I hope, about twelve hours out of the day.
Goodnite, my dearest dear. I love you, Bird