Death of Lady Bird

The death of Lady Bird Johnson reminds me of what happened when her husband died in January of 1973. I was in the novitiate at Marylake, and we had all gone up to Evening Prayer except for one of the old Spanish priests who had poked his head into the TV room to catch the headline news. LBJ had just died, so Fr. Evarist was the first to hear it.

When he came upstairs to the chapel, rather than just announce it, he waited until the Prayers of the Faithful -- when we prayed for particular intentions -- and prayed, "For the repose of the soul of President Andrew Johnson."

Andrew Johnson? Why are we praying for Andrew Johnson? Was it his birthday, the anniversary of his death which had taken place in 1875?

LBJ died at home and had not been hospitalized, and we were not expecting his death. So we were all puzzled, until after vespers when the prior went to find out what Evarist had meant.

And that's how we found out the Lyndon Johnson had died.