 And so I would, he would try to bribe me to lose weight. You know, I'll give you a dollar for every pound or whatever. I mean, he just, he did all of that. I cannot tell you it was a great success, but he certainly did try on that. Well, it's turned out well. Well, no, I don't know that it was, I can give him credit, nor do I want to give him the blame for my extra pounds. But he did not, unfortunately, go to a lot of school things, a lot of things that all of us, you know, the other fathers and mothers went to. But on the other hand, when he did come, you know, we remember that he came to our, I don't know whether it was seventh grade, you know, some seventh grade athletic event or whatever, because he didn't come very much, sit there and listen, which was wonderful. So I had the opportunity to get to know people like Stu Simington and Mr. Sam, the speaker, and, oh, Tommy Corcoran, and, you know, just, it was, it was wonderful. And they were several of them, I think it was, maybe George Smathers, when his wife was out of town, he'd come over and mother would, would help him with his white tie and things like that. But anyway, there were several people like that that daddy would have over on a fairly regular basis, and that was, that was nice. And so I would get to just sit and listen. Now the operative word is listen and sit still, not ask. And so once or twice, you know, my duty was to go get Mr. the speaker, Mr. Sam the speaker, bowls popcorn, and that was what I was supposed to do, make sure he had his popcorn. And daddy did not like it if I tried to horn in on the conversation and ask questions and, and I had my own agenda. And once or twice I was summarily dismissed from the, the guest, because daddy had his agenda and he didn't want me taking this person's time. But one of the unusual things that we did is we always had a birthday party for the speaker and only children came. It was the first part of January and it was the children of the Texas delegation. And that was always kind of special and I don't know why the speaker ever put up with all of us, but we have wonderful pictures of, of all of these little children crawling all over him and, and hovering. And he would have, I think he, I don't know if they were nephews, but I think he had a, some relative who was with, I don't know, the FCC or some agency or somebody that was a special closeness to him and they were always there. I think they were about the only people that, well most of Texas delegation, but then you'd have people like, I think Liz Carpenter's children probably were there and maybe some of the other children that were good friends, but always, and that was kind of an unusual thing to have all these children there for a party for the speaker of the House of Representatives. Tell us about your father's relationship with the speaker. Obviously they're very close. Was it a relationship of equals? Was your father in awe of the speaker? There was no question he was in awe of the speaker. He would say over and over, oh, you know, he's my mentor, he's my big daddy, he's my, you know, he's my guiding light. I mean, he really would tell us all the time how much. He loved the speaker and daddy was very affectionate and he thought nothing of putting his arm around a man or kissing him on the cheek or whatever. He was, he was affectionate with everybody and it was, he, he was very affectionate and he was just a very warm, a warm person and he loved the speaker and I think also the speaker reminded him of his ties with his own father because his father and the speaker had been, had served together and he was a father figure in many ways. Linda, did you like, like, did you yourself like all these people you were exposed to and were there any that you didn't like? I don't remember any I didn't like and yes, I thought it was wonderful to sit and listen to these people. I wish I could tell you one conversation. I cannot think of one thing I ever heard but I don't know, I think it was Stu Simington, my second thought, who came over to get his, his white tie fixed but it was, daddy and mother just had lots of people coming and going from the house and we had a lot of people over for dinner. We had to have staff over, always with families as you know, daddy thought everybody was a member of his family and not only did he, would he have his secretary or and we called them that in those days, men and women, his secretaries but he also would have their wives or husbands and their children and so, he was kind of always in the middle of everything going on in the congressional delegation and I got to meet a lot of interesting people that, you know, otherwise I guess the complaint is that he brought his work home to some extent but having had a husband who was a member of the Senate, I just am odd with the fact that every morning daddy would read the congressional record every day before he went into work and I bet there's nobody who reads it today. You put things in so that you can send it to a constituent, not my husband because he's, never I thought was he as political in those sort of ways but I felt that I really had a front row seat on a lot of things going on. For instance, when there was going to be a particularly interesting speech that he would sometimes try to get me to come, make a, get a seat for me in the gallery to hear. When Alaska and Hawaii were going to be voted into the union, he told me he thought that would be a wonderful time to be there so I could say I was there. He would have us there sometimes when there was a joint message to the Congress or when the President was speaking and he would then want us to analyze what President Eisenhower said and that was quite a test. But he just, what would sweep us in with grown-ups, you know, he just thought they wouldn't mind and he thought it would be wonderful for us but I wish I could remember any specific conversation. I know that Tommy Corcoran, when he came over he would sometimes try to help me with my Latin because he was a Latin scholar really and he would talk ancient history with me and tell me about the Romans and the Greeks. But I can't remember any other, you know, specific areas that we talked about. Someone we taped referred to your mother as his North Star and just about everybody we've taped in one way or the other said that she was the most important thing in his life and kept him on balance. As even-keel as you could keep him and he would get very upset about something and he would just kind of rant and rave and mother would just stand there and kind of let him ventilate and she knew that he was just ventilating and he didn't really mean all of that and he'd get angry and then he'd forget all about it, you know, he couldn't, he wouldn't remember he was angry with somebody and mother would say well would you like for me to call and see if the thornberries could come over and have dinner or what about the Jenkins would you like to see them and we would have have them over and I remember that they would play canasta. This was a 50s thing and I was always kind of amazed because my father wasn't very much of a card player he loved Domino's but he was not a real card player but in the 50s he did do a few social things like that of having people over to play cards. Mother always was the one who kind of calmed him down and and raised his spirits too when he would be feeling low and find it difficult. What was life like on the on the ranch when you were growing up? You see I really only live there any day-to-day time when I was in elementary school I think that was third and third and fourth grade I believe it was. I those days of course Congress would start in January and go until July or maybe August and then they would quit and then all the members of Congress would go back to the delegation so that's what we did. Now daddy would go back sometimes on weekends or whatever but we didn't usually do it so there was always the question of well where are the kids going to go to school so I did kindergarten and first grade and maybe second grade in Austin and then I think I did third and fourth in Johnson City and then I went back to Austin because you know that was you know in order to have some supervision so anyway those years I did live in Austin and I believe it was 54 was one of the years and the reason why I remember this is because daddy was off campaigning and I would get up at what I thought was dawned it really was I mean it was six o'clock catches 7 15 somebody would drive me across the other side of the road to the other side of the river and I would catch the school bus now it was only 15 miles to Johnson City but it took that school bus an hour and a half probably it was just forever because it would go into every back road and we would stop and pick up kids and it was everybody from first grade through high school and one of the experiences that I remember well was when I first started school and mother had gotten me all outfitted in this pretty little cotton dress which buttoned in the back and had a you know tied had a bow and I got on the bus and I went toward to the back and one of the little Dyke boys unbuttoned my dress in nowadays that would be horrified and everybody would talk about sexual things it was not that at all he was just teasing he was just playing he wasn't trying to do anything to hurt me but it was very traumatizing because I couldn't button my dress back up I couldn't get my hands in the back to button it up and so I had to go into first day of school with my dress unbuttoned and I had my head hung and it was very very embarrassing but we would play marbles we would dig holes in the dirt and shoot marbles at lunch we take our lunches and go out in the playground and I mean modest very modest when you're digging a hole with a spoon and in order to to shoot your marbles and I don't we did had we may have had swings but we certainly didn't have a very very many nice pieces of playground equipment in Johnson City but also in the school was my cousin Eva and she was my father's first cousin Eva Cox Eva Johnson Cox and one year and this was was 54 we had a terrible flood and the water rose and I was in town when this happened and mother and Lucy Lucy was too too young to go to school and mother and Lucy were at the ranch and so the water came up and it was determined that we couldn't get across the dam and so all the lot of the kids had to stay in Johnson City and my cousin Eva took me in and we had no electricity and we used a kerosene lamp and we didn't have anything to eat and we went to the locker plant to try to get some some meat because that's where you kept your meat and of course they didn't want to open it because they didn't want to let any of that frozen any frozen food spoil and that was one of my real memories we went out to look at the river and the water was very high even in Johnson City and we were kind of caught between different rising waters and and there was a little bit of a fear of oh my goodness you know this is exciting but it's kind of scary and I don't think I ever feared for my life but I was I was nervous and of course we didn't have clothes that's what we wore in that day but it was a wonderful experience for me to go to school there because I was going to school with children who who really didn't have all the advantages I did and I remember there was a girl in my class who was losing her teeth her teeth had turned brown because you know she didn't get to go to the dentist and here I had to go twice a year and I didn't you can read a lot about those things but when you actually see somebody who doesn't get to go to the dentist and therefore at the age of eight or nine or ten is have teeth that are rotting it's something you remember and then my cousin Eva would ask me if I would give her the clothes I had grown out of because they were children in her class she taught first grade and they were children in her class who couldn't come to school because they didn't have any any clothes to wear or a child would you know one could come one day and then the next day their sibling their sister would wear that outfit so she would ask me to give her my dresses or my jeans or whatever that that I had our shoes and so those were valuable very valuable experiences for me although I can't tell you the high quality of the education it was not what daddy would call book learning but it was wonderful lessons of life that I still tell my children about and it's the kind of experience that you don't have unless you are in an environment where you have people of of different economic strata so that was a very good thing what was it like being married in the White House well it was the best of times and the worst of times it was getting married was wonderful period I mean it was so exciting and you had all the pomp and ceremony it was also I think difficult because there were so many people that we had to invite that my parents felt that we needed to people who were you know not necessarily my close personal friends or even my fathers and mothers close personal friends but people that were in positions that we needed to invite and so I look back and I think why did we invite this person and that was because they were some leader in the Senate or that person was somebody in the house that was a real good friend of you know helping daddy on a piece of legislation and then of course this was the time when Vietnam was really beginning to get hot Lucy got married in 66 and I laughingly say that people liked us better than and she got better wedding gifts and by the time I got married we didn't have as many friends and we didn't certainly didn't have as many that felt like they needed to send as nice a gift on occasion but it was wonderful wonderful and I have also told my children that there were so many people that came to the wedding that Chuck and I never really got to see there was one person a friend of his that drove from Ohio people who came from all over a lot of my friends high school friends grade school friends that I didn't ever really have a chance to talk to because after the ceremony we went back upstairs to because they had to fix up the the ballroom is the East room is where we were actually married so they had to take down the altar and push the people into another area or something I don't really know because I wasn't down there but it took a long time and then we went down and stood in line and standing in line with daddy sometimes could be a long ordeal because he would stop and talk to everybody and we would try to get a picture with each person and and I stood in line for hours and hours and I had a very heavy wedding dress it was wonderful dress beautiful dress but it was satin and it had beating on it and my shoulders were just aching I literally just was very very heavy and that was one of my least favorite things about it and then afterwards you you thought oh gosh I didn't enjoy this in the same sort of way that you would like to end because they said oh you have to leave now because nobody else can leave until you leave and I really wanted to go back downstairs to the party and and enjoy it we did of course dance and cut the cake and we cut the cake with Chuck's Marine Mamalook sword that he had been given as the honor graduate at Quantico and it was wonderful pomp and circumstance but some of the ordinary things I missed out on seeing friends who came all that way and we just saw them going through the receiving line and never really did have a conversation but it was a beautiful wedding and we never could have done it without the help of lots and lots people and particularly Bess Abel and Willie Day Taylor and and Liz and and the only sad part was that when when daddy walked me down he was really sad and not because he didn't love Chuck because he thought Chuck was wonderful but I think it's because I was his firstborn and he was giving me away to somebody else and I have seen other fathers who were so overjoyed and so happy but when I look at the photographs of my father particularly I realize how sad he was and there's a wonderful picture of a photograph of daddy on when we were doing the rehearsal and he just looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders which he did but he just looks so kind of downcast and mother is patting him on the cheek and smiling and cheering him up so I have lots of wonderful memories from from the wedding. He referred to it often he would talk about it and he would talk about the the poor little Mexican children that he was teaching and I guess I really never appreciated how smart he was. I too bought into this I'm just a poor boy and I didn't get all this education that all those other people did and and you know he wasn't interested in the things that we considered highbrow you know opera and symphony and art at least going to art galleries and things like that but he would start talking about what I guess now we call economics and I didn't know what it was but he would talk about how this affected that and he had a wonderful conversation once with Lucy discussing the effects of of sales tax and how it was regressive and how it hurt the poor people and I mean it was I really didn't appreciate how smart he was although he would pull figures out all the time and he would talk about you know all sorts of things that I didn't understand at all but I didn't really appreciate and I'm sad about that and of course I regret the fact that I didn't ask you more questions about his growing up I think it's a common problem that young people are more interested in themselves and you only began to be interested in in other people when you get a little older and when you began to think about your own memories and own mortality and then you began to want to know well how did mother and daddy handle this or what did you ever think about that or a lot that I remember I remember because of the photographs I do remember asking my grandmother about or hearing her tell about her mother-in-law telling her about hiding under the house when the Indians came and my father did take me as a child I was probably four years old or anyway not very old to see the house in Johnson City and you know I think I probably want to crawl under it and see if I could but daddy did take me there but as for remembering a lot of stories I think he always tried to make us understand how lucky we were and how privileged we were to have all the creature comforts and he was aware of the fact that there were a lot of people in the world who didn't have all of those those opportunities and I think certainly that his experience is teaching really molded his life and you know it was his his rock and he went from there but I wish I'd ask him more no question about it. This is like I have to they're rushing through my head your mother has talked rather often about the fact that that she felt that she had given you and Lucy short shrift because she had spent so much time with him did you and Lucy is talking about it too did you feel in any way abandoned in your childhood because of his demands? Jealous yes always jealous why is daddy taking mother away from us I think all children want their parents 100% attention and it's not so much maybe that they want the parents to talk to them but it's they want to talk to the parents they have lots of ideas of what the parents could be doing for them and yes I think I was jealous I don't remember being as angry as Lucy has said she was I don't remember saying those things I guess what they tried to do with me is they tried to tell me that I should kind of take care of Lucy and that I was supposed to to mother her and I always of course thought that I was doing a wonderful job and I remember very well going up to the third floor of Dillman of 30th place when I was growing up and I would bring home my elementary school books and they were those wonderful jump-jip jump books and you know all of those things that we now say are how terrible they are and I would just assemble a school and I'd have my dolls and I'd have Lucy and I was teaching her what I had learned in school and I thought I was being wonderful Lucy later on let me know that I was being bossy and I was you know forcing her to do something she didn't really want to do and and so forth and I think I played that part and I would tell Lucy that you know I make the mistakes and then I would say Lucy don't do this because it'll make daddy mad and I certainly got in trouble with my father many times part of it was because I was I would talk back to him and he did not like that and I would tell Lucy it don't do that because daddy will daddy will really be angry and again I think she thought in some cases I was being bossy and in retrospect I probably should have let her get in trouble because she was always the the perfect little child who you know had this porcelain skin with the veins coming through and people would kind of say to her or say to mother oh do you think you know how is she is she going to make it you know she's going to survive kind of much to my consternation because I was the the kind of sturdy child and nobody ever asked how you know how I was feeling and I was expected to kind of carry the load and Lucy would do things and I'd get caught and that was it was very unfair always she the difference is I would say daddy can I you know go to the store and he would say no and I would just rebel and fuss and complain and and Lucy would just go to the store you know it's the whole difference between asking permission and asking forgiveness and I learned that later too I you know in hindsight she was so much smarter than I was and just she would do something that clearly she should know she shouldn't do and then she'd look up with those big blue eyes and say I never knew that you would mind that meanwhile I would have been sent to my room and punished and so forth and I wouldn't have even gotten the pleasure of doing it and I did that quite a few times once my grandmother who my father just worshipped my day and she is the real my day and she would come to visit and sometimes I would get to go back to Texas with her on the train and that was just the most wonderful thing to get to go on the train with my day and I remember one time my day came and we were supposed to leave and my day got sick and I was just furious I mean I was just well I wanted to go now and daddy was rightly not sympathetic to my problems and the only other time that I can remember on the same kind of thing is once when I was in high school I was going to go to Texas for spring break and oh I had high plans I was I had a friend down here I was going to go stay with and I was at National Cathedral and we didn't get very many vacations and I was very eager to go and the day of the flight I was going to fly down by myself and we would fly from Washington to Dallas and then change planes and go on into Austin and there was bad weather and they were predicting snow and they said it was going to be difficult and bumpy and so I remember being in daddy's office and I said I wanted to go and he said well you know I you'll I know you'll use your own good judgment and I said well they wouldn't be flying the plane if it wasn't safe and he said he said well he said I remember that's what mr. Braniff thought too and of course he was killed in an airplane accident and then he'd say and of course you remember you know Tom Clark Justice Clark yes I knew Justice Clark good friend and we went through all of this he'd say I remember he said you know Tom Clark had a brother and one time I had to go he was killed in an airplane accident and I had to go and identify him and the only way we could identify him were the initials on his shorts story was true at all but daddy used every way to you know he wasn't gonna say to me you cannot go and I will you know he didn't threaten me I know you'll use your own good judgment but he felt he needed to tell me all these horror stories well one time I finally just didn't fall for it and I just said well I'm gonna go you know well I got on the plane and sure enough we had bad weather and the plane was delayed getting to Dallas and I didn't mind the bumps and because I was young enough not to know to really understand about how bad things could happen in in airplanes but we got to Dallas late and I just hated the thought of having to call and let him know that he was right you know and I don't remember how old I was but and I was in high school but I was not very old and so the airline in those days when it was their fault or when the plane missed the connection they would put you up for the night and I had to call and tell them that I was stuck in Dallas and I wouldn't be to Austin till the next day it was I wasn't scared I just was I just hated having to call and and let him know that I had used my bad judgment and that happened on occasion among some biographers and a lot of newsmen your father in many respects was like a cage tiger in the vice presidency do you recall the fact that he was happier this majority leader than vice president oh yes I think there's no question and he was just not in control and and he'd given up all his power and yes he was not not as happy now I took several trips with him two trips when he was vice president and they were wonderful and I think he loved that but I never heard him say anything but kind things about President Kennedy and he gave a lot of people credit for things he would brag about how what a wonderful job that the speaker had done in the house on something when they'd worked together on it when he had a success he would he would give credit to other people members of the Senate who had gotten a bill through or something but and of course we all know about how he gave credit to to Harry Truman on on Medicare and I think he really did feel as president he was trying to fulfill some of the dreams of FDR who he also thought he was a political daddy of his and who he loved but the vice presidency was not a not a happy time for it but I'm stepping back a little bit more about family life I remember when he had his heart attack and after that when we would talk to him on the telephone mother would admonish us not to say anything that would upset him and you know don't don't you know try to be you know tell him everything is fine and that you're happy and you know you miss him but not to put a guilt trip on him and I remember that there were lots of times when I really wanted to complain and fuss about not having my mother there or whatever but I think that I at least understood that he needed her even more than I needed her and that I had Lucy to keep me company and I think part of it was I thought that I was you know I was somewhat in charge and it was my duty to mother her and again as I say I don't know that she always took that as a kindness on my part how do you how do you think your father will be well I hope that he'll be remembered as somebody who who tried to do what he thought was right for the country and tried to help us all to live up to the best that we could be he cared so much about education he wanted us to get as much as we could I think my mother wanted us wanted me to go to one of the seven sisters and I think that that was because she didn't she didn't and I think sometimes parents have aspirations for their children that reflect what they wish in hindsight they'd had the opportunity to do and I think they somewhat also bought into this idea that a state university wasn't as high quality in spite of the fact that my mother just loved the university but I remember John Conley talking to mother and daddy and with me there about going to college and one of the questions was well what if you go two years up north somewhere you know to one of those seven sisters or a fancy school and then come down to the university and he recommended not he said you know you make your friends the first few years and it'll be more difficult and since we hadn't lived in Texas all the time and daddy mother listened to that and they both knew that education was very very important and it was really my my crutch that was something that I wanted I did on my own it wasn't anything that I got because I was the daughter of a senator from Texas or even the vice president I got my grades based on my ability and he was so proud of me when I when I made Alpha Lambda Delta the freshman honorary but I also felt a lot of pressure a lot of pressure to do well I didn't really enjoy the university as much I didn't play I didn't go to many parties I didn't do all of those because I felt a lot of pressure that I had to kind of perform I had to to show him I could do it and even when I made bees daddy would say well you know next time you can make a's just have to try harder and I did since he thought education was so important I think he probably emphasized that more than having a good time and and enjoying what I was doing but