You're listening to gift biz on rapt episode 151.
So how do you,
when you have a purpose fulfill what you're supposed to do
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Your gift biz here is your host gift biz gal,
Sue Mon height in honor of him March being women's history
month. I want to take you back in time.
We will be talking with Ladybird Johnson,
the wife of the 36th president of the United state Lyndon
B Johnson Ladybird Johnson's life spans the 20th century from 1912
to 2007.
This is a century in which the role of women changed
dramatically. Ladybird herself said that her life was apart for which
I never rehearsed.
So as not to interrupt the continuity of this fabulous interview,
I'm just going to insert here a message from our sponsor.
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for more information,
Please join me in welcoming Ladybird Johnson to be with us
here today.
Well, thank you so much,
Sue. I'm so pleased to be with you today.
I am so honored that you've taken some time to share
with us today,
and I want to start out our talk as I always
do. And that is by having you share what a candle
would look like that really resonates with you.
And what I mean by that is if you were to
pick a special color that would be on your candle and
then a saying,
or a motto or something that always drives you forward,
what would this candle look like by color?
And word Candle would be yellow,
like Texas yellow star and Lord cups,
and four nerves.
The flowers are planted by the hundreds in the Hill country
of Texas.
And then there was local yellow flowers that are planted along
the highways across the country.
When we did a beautiful America program.
I love that because my favorite color is yellow too.
What would be the quote or a motto or something that
you've used in your life that you would put on that
yellow candle?
I think it would be sometimes the greatest courage in the
room is to get up and get dressed and go to
work. Why do you say Because we women have jobs that
a day of the moment of taking care and sometimes many
times you have to put aside any tiredness and sadness and
you have to just get up,
get dressed and go to work.
That's how we take care of.
So don't even second.
Guess it,
just get moving and do your intention,
what you're supposed to be doing.
Exactly. You know,
I wouldn't have thought of that from a woman from your
day, but I think that whole statement resonates for us today
as well.
Well, you see,
when I started out,
I needed to develop my own purpose.
I had no purpose,
but we'll talk more about that.
I'm sure.
Yes, we will for sure.
But first I want to take it from the beginning and
I'm really curious.
How did you get the name Ladybird?
Well, I was born December 22nd,
1912 in the only brick house for miles around.
And when I was born,
my mammy,
Alice turtle was the first to wash me.
She looked into my dark eyes and she says,
why she's is pretty decent lady bird.
And that name stuck with me ever since.
Aw, but wait a minute.
I have to ask you a question.
Did I just hear you say mammy kind of like in
gone with the wind?
Oh yes.
The world was there and much like post civil war days
in its gentility in its hi,
my father Thomas Jefferson Taylor had swept my mother meaningly Taylor,
white of a fine family and Billingsley Alabama,
instead of her in Karnack Texas only brick house moms around,
he had a store that said dealer and everything.
And he was in that part of the world in built
and everything,
including politics.
So let's get to the role that you played because this
is so interesting.
And I'm sure we're going to have a lot of depth
to this here.
Did you have any role models to prepare you for being
the vice president's wife?
And then the first lady?
Not at all.
My mother was a tall lady of refinement.
She walked quite a lot,
launch Panama hats with brands.
She went to Chicago each year to hear the opera.
She sometimes went to bed or Creek,
Michigan for cure.
And then when I was six years old,
she tripped over a small father,
dog and failed battle,
long flight of stairs.
She was pregnant and miscarried food poisoning in and before I
knew it,
she was gone,
Oh my,
so it's six years old.
Then I was gone.
My older brothers,
they are living in the eight years older than I,
and they were away at school.
So my father sent me to my mother's family,
to my aunt and people to that.
And if it was the most over worldly woman that I
had ever known,
she painted,
she played the piano.
She taught me all about the wild flowers and we would
go and have imaginary visits among the Ferris who lived out
there. But she could not teach me practical things when I
was in school.
Like what way or how to make friends.
And that certainly never happened.
I don't think I ever met a woman who actually lived
in the 20th century until I went to college in Austin,
Texas. And I met my first real friend.
You junior Berenger new Jean.
Yeah. She was like,
Carrie's in my life.
She taught me to look and see what my talents were.
She encouraged me perhaps to become a journalist.
I almost say I liked that because I learned to use
a camera and I could go all the places you,
you went,
but I could stay behind my camera.
Then I didn't really have to come out.
And people,
you know,
it's because of Jean that I actually met.
Lyndon Johnson.
Want to hear that story?
But I do have a question for you first.
It seems so courageous to even go off to college in
Texas. How did you decide that that was going to happen?
Most women at that time didn't really go to college yet?
No, it was decided for me.
I remember the school in feelings really when I was 13,
but I was too young to really go for college.
So I was put in a school and the people,
they were really kind to me and they understood that I
had never really had a mother and they with my father
decided that I would go to college in Austin.
My father sent me off with a shiny black Buick.
I was 17 years old and a charge account that Neiman
Marcus. And while I may have looked rather sophisticated,
I knew nothing of the world.
I'd still say that word.
It's pretty courageous.
Even though you knew that that was what you were going
to have to do to go ahead and go and then
make your way in the world is amazing.
So you met Eugena and then you Lyndon tell us that
story. After college,
I had all manner of dreams of what I might do
as a journalism.
Jean had encouraged me to take shorthand and typing.
She got a job in a Congressman Greenberg's office in Austin,
but I was still too frightened of the world.
I went back home,
nobody had paid any line to my father's house since my
mother's death.
And I decided that I would remodel it,
which also gave me the opportunity to go to Austin often.
And I was in Jean's office.
When this man came in,
he was tall and dark.
Hadn't had more energy than any man that had ever seen
except my father.
And he had come there because he had a date with
one of the girls in the office.
He looked at me in a certain way and he looked
at his date and they lifted.
Jean invited us all to come out with him.
And then he took me home life.
Well, not really.
He dropped me off at the hotel and he is,
but the scan of the words and the perhaps made me
meet him for breakfast in the hotel the next day.
And I did,
I had an appointment with an architect first and he waited
for him and during the appointment,
and then he took me for a ride and he told
me the most amazing thing all about his family.
And he used the ambition and his age education,
and we spent four or five days talking.
I decided he should meet daddy.
And I brought him back to Khan,
AQ, and I could see that it was quite impressed by
this fella.
And then Lyndon had to go back with Congressman Kleberg to
Washington. He was also in that school there,
but he wrote to me and he telephoned me and I
got letters and calls every day.
And he kept asking me to marry him.
And I talked to my friends and they said,
well, wait,
you hardly know the man.
And I went to talk to Jeannie and all that again.
And while I was there,
when then came forth to the hotel early in the morning,
I'm not,
I am not there early in the morning.
And he had gotten his friend,
Dan Quayle,
who was a postmaster to arrange a marriage license and a
rector edit and a piece of paly and church.
And for that afternoon he said,
take her away.
But So he really took control.
How did you feel about that?
I suppose I was used to man taken control and I
was smitten with this towel bundle of energy.
I, Paul Jean and a few other friends.
They met us at the church and I had a reading
from the Sears and Roebuck across the street.
I've never been good to see the marriage license for me
is I was afraid we were not legally married.
I think it wasn't until our 20th anniversary,
then you're spraying produce it for me.
There I was a wife who had never cooked a meal
with her life or higher two rings a finger for anybody
mother sale.
Well, it was clearly the right decision because you stayed married
for quite a while,
but how did you stay married to that bundle of energy?
That was Linden?
Well, Linden decided that he would run for Congress.
I borrowed against my inheritance to help him.
And some other people pitched in and now I was given
things to do on the campaign trail.
And I was given a purpose.
My purpose was to keep my husband's shirts pressed and to
talk to people and stand up and address crowd.
I was good at the first.
I learned how to do that,
but I was not so good at the second,
but I had a purpose.
So how do you,
when you have a purpose fulfill what you're supposed to do
now, Landon had always said that it really was not important
for you to know exactly how you were going to accomplish
what you set out to do.
You simply have to look inside yourself and see what your
talents are and then use them to the best of your
ability to get,
to fulfill the purpose you had set out to come to
you. Wow.
That is a really interesting point because just as women of
today, you're really not successful.
Unless you drive to a certain goal,
you have some type of vision.
And I think what I'm hearing you say,
lady bird is you weren't necessarily sure how you were going
to get there,
but you knew what the purpose was.
Yes. So that was the whole thing to know what the
purpose is.
So if the purpose was to get boots,
I decided I could take my car,
my little black Buick and drive a town ahead or two
where Lyndon was going to come through and I would stop.
And I would get one gallon of gas.
Now, in those days,
when you got gas,
they wash your windshield,
checked the pressure in your tires,
they check your oil while they were doing that.
I would speak to the man,
cause they're always man,
sit from the gas station,
tell him who I was,
who Landon was hand for literature,
give them all a big Tam devote fully and then,
and drive out to the next gas station.
I'm always better at that time talking to one or two
people, then the dozens or hundreds I was asked to.
And that's how I fulfilled my purpose and have landed.
And I got to Washington.
So did you already have this strategy when you set off
or did it evolve as you stopped for gas and you
saw an opportunity and said,
Hey, I'm going to spread the word.
And then it became a plan.
Then that was your strategy,
your campaign plan,
Where it started,
because I could not fulfill the purpose of speaking to the
group, too many people.
So it was a different way to get the same results.
Exactly. There are often many ways and I have learned that
over my lifetime.
Sometimes the world tells you Madam,
that tactic is not going to work.
So you look to your talents.
Well, what are my talents and how can I use them
to do this differently?
When we got to Washington,
for instance,
a congressman's wife was posed to have a lot of teams
with all the congressmen wives,
with the senators wives,
with the wives of the diplomatic Corps,
it was driving me mad.
I am change.
But then I saw that in politics,
constituents come,
first constituents is spelled all in capital letters.
So what did constituents need?
When they came to Washington,
they needed a host to take them to learn and order
the Lincoln Memorial,
all the cherry trees and lots of things that I love
and that I had a tailor to learn about.
And so in that wing map purpose in being a representative,
why was to help his career and keep his constituents,
appreciating him.
And if I could show our appreciation for them,
by taking them around,
I met so many wonderful people.
I learned so many wonderful things.
It was my way of getting to the purpose by using
my talents.
We're so smart because you used what naturally you felt comfortable
with and your skills and not everyone has that skill of
being a hostess and the social one-on-one and touring and all
of that.
So that was brilliant lady bird,
But I didn't know it was brilliant.
I didn't know that anybody else could use it.
Quill really had to take a deep breath was after Pearl
Harbor, Landon like many other congressmen and enlisted.
Right. And I knew that I was chosen to be continuity
in his office.
I did have some money.
Hey, and I could write a good letter.
I don't think anybody expected much more me than that.
That's what women do.
Just wouldn't gene had done back in Austin,
but I assume so that there were things that were not
being done constituents.
We're going to suffer for it.
People would write and the mother would want to know what
her stainless son was.
And a farmer was upset.
Cause he was,
I'm afraid that the rural electrification project wouldn't be go ahead
because of the war,
people needed rooms.
And they needed to know things about where taxes were going
to help their particular part of our congressional district.
And so I had to move into a whole new set
of skills because my purpose was to be continuity.
My purpose was to have things ruined as well in smoothly.
And for the benefit of our constituents,
is it Landon was there himself.
Women were strong and powerful as wives at this time and
not particularly in their own.
And the amazing thing that happened is that I found that
I could do this.
I saw it for the first time that I could actually,
if a woman to earn my own living,
I could live my own life.
I could leave,
Oh, the people to do what they had to do.
I certainly did so problems wrong way.
I could never use Linden's method.
And if I was a squeaking wheel,
I was a wheel that squeaked very politely.
And that is a very good thing.
And for your self esteem,
when you understand that you might have a place in the
world. Now I have to tell you at this time I
still didn't have any children.
I had four miscarriages and a tubular pregnancy,
but I was having a tremendously exciting vital life.
And that is good to know that you yourself,
beside from a man,
Hey capabilities.
I found that out rather than to my amazement purpose,
defined by being Lyndon Johnson's wife for a lot of beliefs.
So at that time,
not so unusual for other women at that time.
That's what I saw around me.
But I must tell you that it was about to change
for me and for other women.
You see who hope I happened,
world war CIMA started and Leander like many other congressmen.
Like many of the American man just went and volunteered for
the army and left their jobs.
And Linden left me the job to be the continuity in
his office.
Now a handsome show of hand.
And I had typing and I could write a good letter.
That's what women did in man's offices.
But I soon found that things were not being done to
help our constituents like,
Oh, a woman would write to us and frantically asking where
her stainless son was on a farm or would ask,
would he electrification of his farm be delayed because of the
war. People needed to know that there was still tax money
coming their way for rooms and water,
other projects.
And I knew all of Brandon's brands,
all his network.
And I knew how to pick up a telephone or vote
about offices and talk to them.
I mean,
a Habs,
I was a squeak in whale,
but I was a squeaky wheel my way.
I could never do it the way Liam did.
And so we got things done.
You know,
you don't come across to me as having that bravado.
Did you just feel like you had no choice,
but to step up?
So you just did it.
Yes. My purpose was to make the office continue the way
it had when Landon was there and that meant doing things
for our constituents.
And I found as I did it that I really could
do it.
It was,
as Lyndon said,
I didn't know when I started out exactly how I was
going to accomplish my purpose.
And I started with the parents I had and I went
on and I realized if it was ever necessary,
I could make my own living.
And that's a good feeling to hire.
That's very good for you and for your self esteem and
for your place in the world,
You share a good message for all of us here.
And that is in the beginning.
You might have questioned,
but you did anyway.
And then the success of having done that led to more
confidence, which in turn led to a higher level of doing
and it just kept progressing from there.
Well, yes,
and it was so important to me to see that things
were being done.
Our newspaper in our districts said that instead of reelecting,
Landon to Congress in absentia,
they should call a convention and nominate Mrs.
Bending. Wow.
It was wonderful because I didn't have any home-based like other
women did.
I had had four miscarriages at a tubular pregnancy during the
years of our marriage,
but I realized I by myself had tremendously excited by life
and I didn't have to have any home base so to
speak. And it's good to know that you yourself was that
from a man.
So capabilities.
I found that to my amazement.
Right. And so how Did things carry on from there?
Well, Linden came home and he thanked me profusely and profoundly
and then told me I didn't have to go down to
the office,
the NMO,
but now you loved what you were doing.
Yeah. And it was not available to me anymore.
I had lost my purpose.
And so I decided that I would use my experience in
one, to be a journalist.
And I would find a newspaper in Austin,
Texas. And instead I found a radio station and I went
down to Austin and this radio station had own corrected bills
and advertisers who never paid.
And I used from knowledge.
Then my uncle Claude,
the cello had given me about finance and how you had
to collect your receivables,
you know,
to pay for your bills.
I put that radio station into a position where I was
actually making money,
but Linden for me to come home.
Now I had a choice to make,
did I stay in Austin or did I go home to
this man?
And I decided I really loved me.
And he told me more dreams that he would have about
becoming a Senator.
And I had to find a new purpose as it happened.
I got pregnant,
I got pregnant twice.
I had my beautiful daughters and I found that while I
was home,
I could still build more radio stations and television was permanent.
And I could manage my stations and my television stations and
my family at the same time.
And it was wonderful.
So that became my purpose.
And I used all my talent to do that.
But now you did become one of the great women in
politics. Well,
in 1955,
Landon had a big purpose.
He saw that the South could not continue segregated.
He saw that Bob being segregated businesses would not come to
the South.
That population was leaving and go and know that the South
was becoming the same kind of program.
It had been before the civil war.
And he started to change that.
Of course,
he had tremendous resistance,
so much resistance that he had a heart attack and the
called me and I rushed to the hospital and you know,
to see someone not in their own,
right. And I thought I might lose him.
And I decided at that time they needed my care.
He needed my attention and that I was willing to make
my purpose to achieve and Hughes purpose.
You know that in 1957,
Linden spent 32 things on a court in the Congress trying
to get the equal education has.
And I brought him meals and I brought him clean clothes.
And then of course,
shortly after that,
he was chosen randomly for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
And I met those Kennedy women.
I was in some tall call.
And for the first time I did what I had never
done. I joined the Capitol speakers club.
I was in my late forties.
And I took lessons in how to give us things,
how to Olga,
how to pace your delivery,
how to wait for applause and laughter.
And we hit the campaign trail.
We certainly did that.
We won that election.
And what a proud time that was I'm sure.
Yes, of course it's certainly worth,
I was so proud of playing them and where we had
come. And I will tell you that we went all around
the world and we would be signing guests books.
And in front of me would be people from other countries.
A woman would be signing lady this and lady that,
and I must tell you,
I felt at all,
it's fine.
And lady bird,
But that's what you were known as.
That's right.
That's what I was known as I could never lose lady.
But yeah.
And I love the progression of your life story because you
continued to look for more surmountable things,
more things that challenged you,
that you could overcome.
It started from the beginning,
just having a purpose in the place and then building your
confidence as you took over and then going through the election
and then the radio stations and all of that.
And your whole life was just building on top of itself
and giving you more and more confidence.
And I'm quite sure more and more pride,
which then allowed you,
when you decided you wanted to switch your purpose to support
your husband and the campaign.
You were even a stronger woman at that point.
Well thank you for saying that,
Susan, but it is,
you can't stay at home in bed.
You got to get dressed and go to work.
This sounds great,
but I don't think we can overlook the assassination.
Yeah. The day had started her up.
So there was sunshine and the streets were lined with people,
families, children,
with flags and FICA.
And then suddenly they went and Linden secret service man came
over the back of the car.
He shoved me to the floor and put his body across
the landing and I could barely breathe.
And then we would go on fast.
So very,
very fast.
And then we stopped suddenly in the hustle Vivian side.
And I knew that we were in a hospital and Lyndon
said, go find Jackie and Millie Connolly.
The husbands have been shot.
So I want to be long what corridors until I found
Jackie outside operating room,
she was quite alone.
She looked like a right,
as you might expect that I hold her.
And then when I stepped back,
I saw that her pink suit was to prove it in
her husband's blood had gloves and one leg.
And she said,
I want them to see what they have done.
You've seen pictures of me on the airplane standing next to
Linden when he has taken the oath of all.
But I am not there.
I have retreated to someplace where none of this is happening.
It is quiet.
And I am by myself instead of surrounded by people in
morning, it was a place I went to after my mom
or dad,
but I couldn't stay there there,
no, because there were changes that had to be made and
they would changes of a domestic.
So housing children,
decorations for Christmas had to come down and morning had to
go up and we had to move and the Kennedy's and
Mrs. Kennedy and her children that was all needed for retention.
You could not stay in bed.
You had to get up,
get dressed and go to work.
And then in a very short time,
Linda had to decide if was going to ruin for president
again. And he asked me after this mass sale to help
him room for president.
And I wrote him,
I said,
beloved, you are as brave a man as Harry Truman or
FPR Lincoln,
you can go on to finish some peace and some achievement
amidst all the pain.
You are strong patient determined beyond words of mind to experience
and a awning for just spit out now would be wrong
for your country.
And so I joined him in that struggle and I found
in that purpose,
something I had never,
ever found before.
And what was that?
I decided I would have a whistle stop campaign.
Harry Truman had done it in the forties.
The train would leave Washington DC,
go through the South and come back.
And we would stop at small towns and bring our message
of change in the country of bringing peace of integrating everybody.
But the men would not really get a port.
The lady bird special sensitive was suddenly too busy.
Congressman couldn't see me now the most wonderful press secretary name
is Results carpenter.
And Liz was just a bundle of energy.
And she said,
no lady,
but if the man won't help us,
the women would do it.
And for the first time I had a team,
I had a team with live.
I had a team with Kennedy.
I had a team working with me and Kayla breezy,
Marjorie, Megan,
the mayor,
Senator Byrd,
wouldn't come on a train,
but don't order it.
And I found that,
wow, the mayor of a small town or the sheriff or
commissioner of a County,
wasn't so willing to come forward with their wives were they
came from God and clubs and church groups.
And so in circle,
we started out on the Ladybird special.
I remember we got to one pound at six in the
morning and a woman came up on the back car where
I was standing and shook my hand.
She said,
you know,
I go there at two o'clock in the morning to milk
all my cows and do my chores.
So I could come here with her.
And I knew that I was the closest she would ever
come to her government,
but she considered herself an American,
a citizen.
She proud to be the heart of this whole democracy.
And that women had to realize that and join in that.
And they were ready,
women and able to do that.
Everything, those four days are most proud of the most fulfilling,
the most wonderful days of my who Just as you were
talking about the change in you,
when you found your purpose,
that's exactly what you were doing for all of those women
too. Yeah.
I tried.
I had to find something to do now,
Jackie Kennedy,
if say that they're hot.
Oh, with being the woman to redo the white house,
the people's house,
but they're what were my family.
My parents were no one about why I flopped and Effie
came forward and me.
And so we started the beautified America project and then Brendan
has the war on poverty.
And that started headstock and March tomorrow,
consternation that the rural schools where the children were going,
will be in straightened by men with guns and bombs.
And so I went there when to say,
Hey, these are all,
Oh, I have children.
And we have to think them.
And we have to educate them,
come on women.
The men can't come forward with their guns.
And they'll bomb.
You tell them who is in charge of these children.
Women came out and they did that.
And they would form a ring circle around school where I
was visiting.
And I must tell you,
there were many times when a faith for the womb meant
the face of a man and he took two steps back.
Wow. That was courageous.
The hardest part of that though,
thanks to faith and meeting civility came during the Vietnam war.
It was eaten Landon alive.
If we win even outside the planet have,
Hey, Hey,
it'll be J harmony.
It was off.
It was terrible.
And I saw that he was shrink.
He was dying bad bit.
And so in March,
not teen six to eight,
I wrote into a speech that he was about to give,
will not see no,
will I expect the nomination of my party or president of
the United States.
I didn't know what he was on.
The speech began on television.
And sure.
I know that's what he's saying.
And I just praying that we could make it through almost
a moving here because you see,
I found the wheelchair that Woodrow Wilson had used after he'd
had a stroke in office.
I knew that Linden could never do that and I couldn't
do it either.
And we can't have the day and we could read the
why it happened and go back to the Hill country of
Texas. That's what we did.
And as you reflect back on that time,
what would you say about all of that?
The courage and the challenge and the horrors that you saw,
but also the significant changes you made in the impact on
the world.
What would you say with all your wisdom to women of
today? Women have more power today.
Women have more team,
more other women to spring.
And with more men who are willing to accept a woman,
not just a member of a team,
but a woman,
a leader of the team.
And so you must get up,
get dressed and get to work to a purpose in what
you need to do and your talents and your team.
You know,
moving. When I started out that real Linden,
we would achieve the civil rights act of 64,
the voting rights act of 65,
the open house in the acts of 68,
60 separate bills,
making the federal government active partner in education,
the war on poverty with four separate programs,
including headstart,
Medicare, and the job Corps,
the national endowment for the arts,
the national endowment for the humanities,
you clean air and water standards,
increase Parkland speed thing per se,
and got a nuclear nonproliferation treaty signed and salt talks scheduled.
And just do that because that's your purpose.
It's humbling to hear you list all of the accomplishments and
who talk about having to your purpose through life.
And it isn't easy,
but look at,
by standing up,
getting out of bed every day,
like you're saying all that was able to be accomplished.
Thank you.
So, so things that you allowed me this opportunity to tell
this story and to tell women of America,
ham, or China,
and how I pray that they create that purpose for them
sale and fulfill it as Wyatt.
Thank you so very much for spending your time with us
lady, bird Johnson.
I so appreciate it.
Thank you.
So you have just heard about the life of lady bird
Johnson enacted by Rebecca Bloomfield.
Rebecca has a passion for portraying the lives of famous women
in American history.
In fact,
Rebecca, I believe you've actually met Ladybird Johnson.
Yes I did.
So I was portraying Abigail Adams and was asked to do
that at the Lyndon Johnson library.
And Mrs.
Johnson invited me to have dinner with her.
I thought it was like a friends of the library and
there'd be hundreds of people there,
but there were only 16 people there,
lady bird Linda's speech writer who was now head of the
library lives carpenter for press secretary.
Was there one of the Rob granddaughters and her fiance and
two congressmen and their wives who had known lindens since 38.
And they told stories about her that even the granddaughter didn't
know about her courage and how remarkable the woman she was.
And then I got access to the library to create this
presentation. So you had done the presentation about Abigail and they
saw it and then you got invited to dinner that had
to be incredible.
Did she have any idea or did you know at the
time that you'd be doing the same thing for lady bird?
No. I had to ask permission and I did,
and then I got access to it.
Very interesting.
When I created Abigail,
they were directly from her letters and her words and her
thoughts and her feelings,
but much of the news reporting and what was available superficially
about lady bird was managed news.
And often at one of these headstart openings,
it would tell about the flowers they gave her or who
baked the cake,
but not about what was going on outside.
And fortunately the library had news reports and we're audio taping.
People's recollections of lady bird and the Johnson.
And I got to hear from them how they interacted with
her and what she gave to them,
What an enriching and rewarding thing to do.
It had to be so interesting to uncover all of that
and then to be able to relay it to all of
us, because I'll tell you interviewing lady bird.
I mean,
I felt like I really was going back gift biz listeners.
This is the third time Rebecca has been on the gift
biz unwrapped podcast.
She has done her portrayal of Abigail Adams that was back
in episode 21.
And we also did a wonderful woman named Elizabeth Meyer who
came over to America from Switzerland.
So we learned all about her journey and the life of
someone who decides that they're going to leave and go to
an unknown land that we now inhabit.
Both of those are going to be on the show notes
page. Along with this Rebecca,
we've made kind of a little triad of historical stories.
Now I thank you so much for that.
It's wonderful.
Thank you for the afternoon.
I'd love for you to share with us right now.
What else you do with your life?
Talk a little bit about your professional career.
Well, I get to work with a lot of women because
of my husband,
Jerry Perlstein.
I have a unique agency that offers health life long-term care,
disability and retirement programs to people who are independent entrepreneurs,
sole practitioners,
artists, and I have a particular passion that every woman should
have her own long-term care insurance life and long-term care insurance.
And so I go out among women,
seeing what they do,
seeing how we can keep them safe and give them the
cash they need for a long and wonderful life.
Someone wanted to know more about you from that angle,
where should they go?
They can go to our website,
J Pearlstein ltd.com.
They can email me our bloomfield@jpearlsteinltp.com.
And I'd be happy to talk about how a woman gets
her purpose and keeps it going.
Go, thank you so much.
I think this was so important because I love the part
of lady bird story,
where she discovered that she needed a purpose in the first
place. And then she kept defining it and revising it as
things happened in her life.
But she always still seemed to have that beacon of purpose.
And that's what drove her the whole way.
It's a great message for us gift biz listeners.
I challenge you to think and to really be able to
very concretely define what is your purpose,
because we can all accomplish great things here.
And Rebecca,
you have accomplished great things in portraying these women.
We know them in a whole different way now than we
might have by reading a little story here or there.
You've really brought for sure lady bird,
as well as the others to life for us.
Thank you.
That's my purpose.
There you go.
Thank you once again,
Rebecca Bye-bye thank you.
This episode is all wrapped up,
but fortunately,
your gift biz journey continues.
Are you eager to learn more?
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Head over to gift biz on wrapped.com/twelve
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And until next time happy business crafting.