See What It Was Like to Be a Teen Living in the White House in 1964
See What It Was Like to Be a Teen Living in the White House in 1964
2 minute read
Caption from LIFE. Dressed in new ball gown and laughing about a boy she knows, Luci Baines Johnson, 16, mounts the back-porch steps of her Pennsylvania home.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Americans today are accustomed to seeing a teenage girl living at the White House, from Sasha Obama and Malia Obama, whose future recently made headlines, to Chelsea Clinton and Barbara and Jenna Bush. But in 1964, during President Johnson’s first full year in the office, it had been a while.
As LIFE pointed out in a feature about his daughter Luci Baines Johnson, the 16-year-old younger daughter of the president was the first teen girl in the White House since William Howard Taft’s 17-year-old, Helen, all the way back in 1909.
Life as a teenager in the Executive Mansion was a strange mix of normalcy (homework, $5 a week in allowance, hand-me-downs from older sister Lynda) and excitement (ball gowns, speeches in the Rose Garden). Johnson told the magazine that she was hoping to stay grounded—”I am trying to keep a hold on a private life and my friends,”—but that she could already tell it would be impossible for her life not to change.
Even so, she hoped it would not go to her head—and had a sense of the responsibility in her role, something that would apply to White House kids of any decade.
“I think my greatest responsibility as the daughter of a President is to be myself,” she said, “and to be my best self.”
President Johnson's daughter Luci Baines JohnsonStan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Dressed in new ball gown and laughing about a boy she knows, Luci Baines Johnson, 16, mounts the back-porch steps of her Pennsylvania home.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Luci and sister Lynda Bird, 20, spend a few minutes in their father's office. Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. With an escort most high school girls don't have—a Secret Service agent—Luci rushes to make an 8:30 class at National Cathedral School. Agent also goes on dates and shopping trips.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Luci shops for cosmetics in Washington. She gave saleslady, who hadn't recognized her, an old credit card saying, "I'm sorry the address on this card is incorrect. We've moved recently."Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. In White House solarium where Harry Truman played poker—now fixed up as a social room—Luci does her homework. She does well in sociology, her favorite, but has trouble with languages.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. She talks soothingly to Blanco, a rare, high-strung white collie given to the President by an Illinois schoolgirl just after he took office. "I'm the only one Blanco isn't afraid of," Luci says.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. In special kitchenette off the solarium Luci opens drinks for friends. Her allowance of $5 a week covers long-distance calls, Saturday lunches with friends, incidental school supplies.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. As Queen of Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester, Va., Luci signs autographs from platform. Asked if she had ever been a queen before she said "I've never been anything before."Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. After pageant, Queen Luci goes for a tipsy ride with Earle S. Eckel in a 1903 Stanley Steamer. As she was helped into car, somebody stepped on her train. "Ungraceful," she muttered.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. As her father talks with House of Representatives Speaker McCormack, Luci looks over his clipboard of latest dispatches.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesLucy Baines Johnson, posing for official picture as Queen of Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival, in White House.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
