12 Days of Cookies, Cookies, Bars & Brownies

Cheese Wafers & Lyndon B. Johnson NHP (Day 9)

December 14, 2020

We’re tootling about an hour north of San Antonio today to Texas Hill Country. More specifically Johnson City and the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park.

Visiting this Hill Country community can be a little confusing if you’re trying to track down Lyndon and Lady Bird. There’s just a lot of places to stop by to celebrate our 36th President at. It’s probably best to start where LBJ was born, lived, died and is buried. Stonewall, Texas, about 15 minutes east of Johnson City. If you’re crunched for time, head to the LBJ Ranch District first.

The Lyndon B. Johnson State Park & Historical Site across the Pedernales River from the LBJ Ranch is the place to start the self-guided driving tour. In order to drive onto the LBJ National Historical Park, visitors must stop here to pick up a free permit. Living history programs about two 1918-era German immigrant families, the Sauer and Beckmann families, are available as well.

After crossing the river, there are multiple sites to visit in the LBJ Ranch District. Those featured below are in chronological order for LBJ’s life. The driving tour has a different order.

In August 1908, Lyndon Baines was born in a two room, dogtrot-style home near the Pedernales River. President Johnson’s parents, Sam Ealy Johnson Jr. and Rebekah Baines Johnson, both attended college and were teachers. Sam even served six terms in the Texas state legislature. Politics were definitely in LBJ’s blood! The site you see today was rebuilt in 1964 by LBJ to be used as a guest house.

Just down the road from the Johnson home is the one-room Junction School. When LBJ was a young boy, he’d run down to play with the children at recess. Afraid he’d get lost, Rebekah made arrangements with the teacher, Miss Katie Deadrich, to have young Lyndon start school early. At the age of four in 1912, LBJ learned how to read here.

Education was always a high priority for LBJ. In 1930, he earned a bachelors degree in education from Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Texas State University at San Marcos), and taught public school for several years. His appreciation for education prompted his administration to pass 60 education bills. He returned to Junction School in 1965 to sign the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. LBJ’s first teacher, Miss Deadrich, sat next to him at a picnic table as he signed the bill. This act provided Title I funding for low-income schools, Head Start, special education, and textbooks, among other things.

The Johnson Family moved in 1912 from their tiny two-room home to the LBJ Boyhood Home in Johnson City. We’ll head there shortly.

The culminating property in the Ranch District is obviously the LBJ Ranch or the Texas White House. Originally a one-room rock house built in 1894, the Ranch was once owned by President Johnson’s uncle and aunt, Clarence and Frank White. LBJ’s aunt sold the house and 438-acre property to then Senator and Mrs. Johnson in 1951. After major renovations, Senator, Mrs. Johnson and their two daughters moved in. When Vice-President Johnson became President Johnson in 1963, the home officially became known as the Texas White House.

“View looking west toward the LBJ Ranch. The Pedernales River and Ranch Road 1 are on the left.” (1967; Photo Credit: LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto)

President Johnson was a workaholic during his political career. During his 1963-1969 Presidency, LBJ was in constant contact with his aides, other elected officials and foreign dignitaries while relaxing in Texas. Every room in the house featured a telephone, including the President’s personal bathroom. Anyone on the property could be reached at any time by the President. At one point, 72 rotary phones were on the ranch grounds!

Meetings were frequently held
beneath this live oak.

But it wasn’t business all the time…

An interesting feature of the Texas White House, also known as the Western White House, is its 6,300-foot airstrip and hangar. The Johnsons had these built on the property shortly after they purchased it in the 1950’s. Air Force One, a Boeing 707 jumbo jet, was unable to land on the property. If he used it, President Johnson flew into San Antonio or Austin and took a helicopter or car to the Ranch. Smaller aircraft, such as the Lockheed JetStar on display today, were used by the President to fly from Washington, D.C. to the Ranch. “Air Force One-Half” was brought to the property in 2016 after being salvaged from a government boneyard in Tucson, Arizona. President Johnson’s former pilot, retired Brig. Gen. Jim Cross, flew the 13-passenger jet back to the Ranch. Johnson’s Air Force One, which he was sworn into office on, is on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

The airplane hangar is now the visitor center for the LBJ Ranch District. But in Johnson’s time it was a place for entertaining guests. LBJ enjoyed movies, especially westerns. Films, starring John Wayne or James Bond, were projected through windows on one side of the hangar onto an opposing screen.

Behind the hangar, many Johnson Family personal vehicles are on display. President Johnson particularly enjoyed his white Lincoln Continental convertibles, but loved vehicles in general. One of his favorites is a German-made Lagoon Blue-colored Amphicar. Unsuspecting guests thinking they were enjoying a joyride around the ranch found themselves floating on the nearby Pedernales River or in local reservoirs. LBJ, a jokester, was known to exclaim, “The brakes don’t work! We’re going in!” as terror set into his passengers. (1)

The entrance sign to the LBJ Ranch reads, “All the world is welcome here.” President and Mrs. Johnson truly enjoyed hosting their friends and dignitaries. Giving trinkets and mementos to show his appreciation and respect started when LBJ was a young politician. But he was an especially ardent gift-giver, who personally handled these matters. In fact, a large, well-organized room behind the hangar contains many such items. All gifts bore LBJ’s facsimiled signature, the Presidential Seal, or the Golden Rule–“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Guests on a presidential plane or helicopter could expect a certificate after every ride. The President reveled in gifting others with autographed photos of himself. Other gifts ranged from toothbrushes and pens up to more expensive items like Rolex watches, Dobbs or Stetson hats, and 24K gold cuff links. Wow! (2)

In 1972, the Johnsons donated the Western White House to the National Park Service with a couple stipulations. They would continue to live on the property; and the Ranch would continue to be a working ranch, raising Johnson’s registered Hereford cattle. About 100 to 125 cattle from the original herd are on the Ranch today.

This year, the LBJ Ranch Home is closed to visitors due to structural concerns. However, a virtual tour of the first floor is available here. You can see both of Mrs. Johnson’s bedrooms, and try to count all of those telephones.

Remember the LBJ Boyhood Home in Johnson City? It was here that Sam Ealy Johnson, Jr. and his wife Rebekah moved their family in 1913.

Rebekah taught oratory and debate lessons to neighborhood children. The five Johnson children frequently observed the lessons from the porch benches (photo at left). A 12-year-long member of the Texas House of Representatives, Sam often held democratic party meetings at home. A young LBJ listened in, as well as worked the campaign trail for his father. One of Sam’s political accomplishments was drafting a bill to preserve the Alamo’s legacy. The bill passed in 1905, granting the care of the Alamo to be overseen by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. With parents like this, it’s no wonder LBJ was a enthusiastic individual.

It was on this same porch in 1937 that a young Johnson would announce his run for U.S. Congress in Texas’s 10th Congressional District. His father, Sam, without a doubt, approved.

U.S. Senatorial candidate Lyndon B. Johnson (at microphone) addresses crowd.

The Johnson home was comfortable and featured items not typically found in the area–a radio, telephone, and optical illusions. LBJ called here home until he married Lady Bird in 1934.

LBJ passed away in 1973 from a massive heart attack. Mrs. Johnson continued to live at the Ranch and in Austin until her death in 2007. Both are buried in the Johnson Family Cemetery on the LBJ Ranch in Stonewall.

President Johnson’s life, political career and accomplishments are quite interesting. Whitehouse.gov features a relatively short bio here. The LBJ Presidential Library in Austin shares a visual timeline of Johnson’s life. For a more in-depth look at our 36th President, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center is here.

Today’s featured cookie is more of a cracker. Mrs. Johnson’s Cheese Wafers. Besides running a decades-long radio media conglomerate (KLBJ) and championing environmental causes such as the National Wildflower Research Center (among many, many other charitable works), Lady Bird was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and hostess. Her recipe notes, “Cheese Wafers are a ‘ranch staple’ which are served on all occasions: with salads, with cocktails, etc., or just when one of the grandchildren gets the ‘munchies!'”

Cheese Wafers are ridiculously easy to make in a short amount of time. The combination of butter and grated sharp cheddar cheese makes them crispy and rich tasting, with an additional pop from the puffed rice cereal. One teaspoon of cayenne pepper gives just the right amount of spice at the end of each bite. But this could easily be adjusted depending on your heat preferences. More of Mrs. Johnson’s recipes are featured here on the LBJ Presidential Library website, including her famous Pedernales River Chili.

Hang on for Day 10! The road will be really rough, but worth it, as we go back in time 800 years or more to an impressive ancestral high-rise city.