Former President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson's collection of love letters written to his beloved wife of 39-years "Lady Bird" Johnson will be released to the public for viewing on Thursday, Feb. 14, Valentines Day according to MSN.
The 90 love letters depict nearly a four decade love affair between the LBJ and "Lady Bird," a pure and honest love that many today strive so hard to find.
The correspondence between the 26-year-old future president and the woman the world would come to know as Lady Bird are available for public review for the first time starting Thursday — Valentine's Day — at the LBJ Presidential Library at the University of Texas at Austin.
A few of the love letters were previously released but not the entire collection, which also will be posted online.
Library supervisory archivist, Claudia Anderson stated, "We've had several requests from researchers to release these. It just seemed like a good time to do it."
None of the letters are dated, but merely provide a day of the week. Fortunately for archivists, Taylor saved the envelopes — Johnson didn't — as well as the letters, allowing researchers to assemble what they believe is a chronological order.
Claudia Alta Taylor, the 21-year-old rancher's daughter known to her friends as "Bird," was intrigued but thought Lyndon Johnson's proposal was much too impulsive. Her clearly smitten suitor, however, was persistent.
"It is an important decision," he wrote to her in one of the nearly 90 love letters the pair exchanged during their 10-week courtship in 1934. "It isn't being made in one night ... but your lack of decision hasn't tempered either my affection, devotion or ability to know what I want."
She replied that his proposal and repeated insistence "sort of put me on the spot, didn't it, dear? All I can say, in absolutely honesty, is — I love you, I don't know how everlastingly I love you — so I can't answer you yet."
Anderson said Johnson is "certainly romantic in these letters in that he is wooing her, he's trying to impress her and he makes various arguments why they should get married."
"I would not really call these letters sentimental. He wants a commitment from her. ... His letters express that," Anderson said. "They are fascinating."
She said the letters reflect characteristics that would come to be synonymous with the couple: "His impatience, his passion for helping people; her interest in conservation and nature."But the couple married Nov. 17, 1934, four days after the last letter in the collection, at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio.
Johnson dispatched a friend, Dan Quill, who was postmaster in the Alamo city, to get a ring for the ceremony. It came from a Sears store and cost $2.50.
LBJ and Lady Bird retired to their ranch and Austin, and Lyndon Johnson died in 1973. Mrs. Johnson died in 2007 at age 94.
A perfectly romantic love story just in time for Valentines Day. What do you think about LBJ's love letters being released to the public?
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