November 27, 2023 – Rosalynn Carter

Last week, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter died at the age of 96. She was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, and was acquainted with Jimmy Carter’s family when they started dating in 1945. They were married in 1946 and had 4 children.
She helped her husband win governorship of Georgia in 1970, and as the state’s First Lady, she decided to focus her attention on mental health. She said her proudest achievement as First Lady of Georgia was her efforts on behalf of mentally disabled children. She campaigned for her husband during his successful bid for the presidency in the 1976 election. When Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency in 1977, Rosalynn declared that she had no intention of being a traditional First Lady of the United States. She sat in on Cabinet meetings, at the invitation of the President. And she was the first First Lady to have her own office in the East Wing. Jimmy Carter often called her an equal partner, and Rosalyn represented him in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders. Journalists dubbed her the “steel magnolia” for her fragile and feminine appearance that hid her tough as nails interior.
After leaving the White House in 1981, the Carters stayed busy. They founded The Carter Center in 1982, a private, not-for-profit institution based in Atlanta. And she continued her advocating for mental health, creating The Carter Center Mental Health Task Force. In 1987, she established the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving at her alma mater, Georgia Southwestern State University. And Rosalynn and Jimmy were also very involved in the expansion of Habitat for Humanity. In 1999, the Carters were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In May of this year, the Carter Center announced that Rosalynn had been diagnosed with dementia. She entered hospice care on November 17 and died 2 days later. She was the 2nd longest-lived first lady after Bess Truman (who was 97). And the Carters had the longest presidential marriage at 77 years. Learn more here.