Sherry Justus - Photographer • • • MIZ AVA'S HOUSE • • • A Photo Essay

"Miz Ava's House"

Miz Ava’s House This little red house on the highway just west of Johnson City was owned by Ava Johnson Cox, Lyndon Baines Johnson’s cousin. Born in 1905, her family came to Johnson City when she was about five years old. For two years during her teens, she lived in the little white house in town that is now known as the LBJ Boyhood Home. She was three years older than young Lyndon and went to the same one-room school as he did, at the same time. In her oral history, she tells a story about how they once both got new button shoes. Hers were black patent leather with a red top; his were plain black. He took a liking to hers and they swapped, causing his mother, Rebekah, some agitation. Miss Ava went on to teach fourth grade, led tours of the Boyhood Home in the 1960s, and worked as a costumed employee for the National Park Service, acting as a “cabin lady” in the Johnson Settlement portion of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. Those who knew her describe her as “rough as an old cob” at times; and, “she never let truth stand in the way of a good story.” A true Texas original, Miss Ava is gone now, and her little red house has fallen on hard times. Looking at it now, a quotation once memorized by school children comes to mind: “Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.” Miss Ava was that friend to thousands of students and to visitors who came from far and wide to learn about her much more famous cousin—the one who became President of the United States.
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I’ve stylized these photos to look as soft focus as memories and as worn around the edges as abandoned homesteads.

VIEW EACH IMAGE

Ava and chicken "revisit" the front doorstep »»

Early one frosty morning »»

A gilded ram guards the interior »»

Still life with tumbledown roof and rusty bedstead »»

Brave little house! »»

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This page was last updated on: September 3, 2007

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