Former First Lady and all around national treasure Lady Bird Johnson has passed away at the age of 94.

In recent years, the widow of Lyndon Baines Johnson was virtually silenced by a stroke. She was nearly blinded by macular degeneration. Still, she lived her life with enthusiasm, dividing her time between the family ranch in Stonewall and an Austin home near the presidential library dedicated to her late husband. She thrived on visits with friends and family and inhaled mystery books on tape.

Johnson's daughters, Luci Johnson and Lynda Robb, visited her almost continoually during her last months.

Johnson was equally comfortable counseling her daughters and the 36th president of the United States. During an era when political wives confined themselves to half a dozen safe subjects, she was a fierce soldier in Lyndon's wars against poverty and racial injustice in the early '60s. Before that she was an invaluable asset to the ambitious politician from Texas who progressed from the U.S. House of Representatives, to the Senate, to the vice presidency and finally, the White House.

Perhaps Johnson's crowning achievement, however, was alerting Americans that clean air and water are resources that have to be protected.

"The environment wasn't a matter of serious concern until the Johnson administration, and Lady Bird was responsible for that," said Harry Middleton, who worked for the president and the first lady during the Johnson White House years and served as director of the LBJ Library for three decades. "She will be remembered for those (conservation) efforts forever."

As first lady, Johnson started modestly, supervising the cleaning of monuments and the planting of flowers across the capital city. Next she targeted America's highways. She pushed for the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, which regulated construction of highway billboards and required screening fences to block the view of ugly junkyards.

"Lady Bird Johnson was a trailblazer," said Liz Carpenter, Johnson's former press secretary and friend. "In her quiet determined way, she put the environment on every public official's agenda."

Added Larry Temple, who served as special counsel to the president during the LBJ years and still is president of the LBJ Foundation in Austin, "Not only was she genuine and as pure as anyone I ever knew, but she had this talent for making everybody better when they were around her. ... It's the rarest of talents and one she didn't even know she had."

Claudia Alta Taylor was born Dec. 22, 1912, near Karnack in deep East Texas. She was just a baby when a nurse decided she was as pretty as a lady bird (a type of beetle most commonly known as a ladybug), and the nickname stuck.

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After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in public places, she organized a railroad trip through the South that covered eight states in four days.

She knew Lyndon needed Southern support to win that November's election. With the whistle-stop tour, she dealt directly with those opposed to her husband's prized legislation.

"I know the Civil Rights Act was right, and I don't mind saying so," she told crowds along the route.

At times hecklers met her train, dubbed the Lady Bird Special, and tried to shout her down. She listened quietly, then told them, "You've had your say. ... If you're finished, I would like to talk."

That Election Day, the Johnsons enjoyed a landslide victory.

In addition to championing civil rights legislation, the first lady was an advocate for the new Head Start program for disadvantaged preschool children. She paid personal visits to many of those programs, meeting with the teachers and students.

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The former president died at the ranch in 1973, leaving Lady Bird in charge of the family and their beloved projects. She filled her time with her children, seven grandchildren and her six-year term on the UT board of regents. In 1982, her lifelong environmental work culminated in the National Wildflower Research Center, soon renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, then on the outskirts of Austin. She and actress Helen Hayes founded it to protect the native vegetation and landscape of North America.

"The wildflower center is really an embodiment of Mrs. Johnson's vision to protect and preserve the natural beauty of our country," said Robert Breunig, former executive director of the wildflower center. "Her favorite thing to do was to just go and look at beautiful flowers, and the joy that they give her was palpable and contagious."

Even at the very end of her life, Johnson loved to drop by the center. With great care the staff helped her move from her wheelchair to a golf cart so she could tour the facility. Director Susan Reiff said they would pick some of the flowers so Johnson could touch them, smell them and try to see them.

"Her legacy really goes far beyond wild flowers," Reiff said. "She was talking about taking care of nature and people in communities and integrating the two --really she was talking about sustainability -- 40 years before anybody else. She was ahead of her time."

UPDATE: BOR has more, with pictures.