By Erika Aguilar, KUT News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-891967.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Erika: Liz Carpenter started her career as a Washington journalist. She went on to work for four presidents.
Christy Carpenter: "Working with President and Mrs. Johnson was really I think the greatest experience of her life."
Erika: At a press conference Saturday her daughter Christy Carpenter talked about her mother's eventful life and said she didn't believe retirement.
Christy Carpenter: "When she left this earth she wanted to leave all used up. And I think actually she was because she put her all into everything she did. And she did work and continue writing and being a lecturer. She was very popular as a lecturer. "
Erika: Liz Carpenter was famous for her humor, her political savvy and her power in Democratic political circles. But her daughter says what she'll miss most is her mother's wit.
Christy Carpenter: "She always had a way of making you look at the upside of things you know looking at the silver lining in that cloud and I'll miss not being able to talk about politics as well as you know share our personal lives about one another."
Erika: Liz Carpenter pushed for women's rights her whole life, and found time to write several books.
Kirk Watson: "This is a woman that was covering presidents of the United States she was journalists at the highest level at a time when women weren't really playing in the game of journalism"
State Senator Kirk Watson rememberd his friend at the Travis County Democratic Convention Saturday where plenty of Liz Carpenter's political friends exchanged stories with each other.
Chuck Herring: "She mentored thousands of young women into politics in Texas. Sissy Farenthold ran for Governor in part because of Liz Carpenter."
Chuck Herring and Donna Beth McCormick are friends of the Carpenter family.
Donna Beth McCormick: "Liz just said do it and you just did it. You just didn't question. You just did it."
A memorial and celebration of Liz Carpenter's life is being planned. It will take the LBJ Library and Museum. The public will be invited. In a private affair, Liz Carpenter's ashes will be spread in her hometown of Salado.
Erika Aguilar, KUT News.