I had already conducted the first five oral history interviews with Lady Bird Johnson when she telephoned my LBJ Library office one day in the spring of 1978. Her first words were “Hello, Mike.
Liz Carpenter: Texan
Liz’s family moved to Austin when she was seven years old, so that she and her older siblings could ultimately attend the University of Texas. This was a transition that prepared her for the wider world. By the time she graduated from UT with a degree in journalism, she sensed that her prose and her spirit would enable her to make her mark. “Give me wide open spaces, a Model T, and a typewriter,” she wrote to her mother, “and I’ll see you in the hall of fame.”