During my time in the America, Ga. area covering news, I would occassionally see former President Jimmy Carter around. He was living at his modest home in the Plains community. I hardly ever saw Rosalynn Carter unless it was for a big event. Rosalynn, just like her husband, never really put on airs really. I never forget the way Jimmy sounded when he mentioned his kids and grandkids needed Secret Service protection when he was President. It was almost like he felt it was a waste of resources.
As I’ve mentioned earlier on this blog, Jimmy and Rosalynn’s son, Jack, and his family lived literally down the road from where I grew up back when the neighborhood was more secluded, which is probably why they chose it. One of my neighbor’s was one of their Secret Service agents too. Of course, I was too young to fully understand what it was like to have a part of The First Family living a few doors down in BFE Georgia.
As news breaks that Rosalynn, 96, has passed away after suffering from dementia on Sunday, Nov. 19. According to my neighbors, I met Jimmy and Rosalynn when I was a wee lad and Jimmy held me in his arms as a baby. Or maybe it was Rosalynn? Supposedly, a picture exists somewhere in a box or drawer. But since neighbors have come and gone over the last 40-45 years moving from house to house, I wouldn’t be surprise if the picture was lost or like a lot of hard copy prints becomes damaged overtime.
I first met Rosalynn in person when they were celebrating her birthday at a restaurant in Plains that was celebrating its own birthday. For years, no restaurant had lasted a full year. And the proprietors of Mom’s Kitchen, which has actaully closed down in recent years, were good friends of the Jimmy and Rosalynn as most people in Plains were. So, they were throwing her a party with a cake and all the fixings.
I came close to meeting Rosalynn once at a United Way in Plains while doing a story. They told me I had just missed her. And even though it might have made for some good photos, I think she preferred that I had missed her. After they left the White House, I got the impression that Rosalynn was ready to return to normal civilian life as much as she could. While Jimmy was always going to be a President, Rosalynn just wanted to be Rosalynn – mother, grandmother, sister, daughter and friend.
But she still used her position as a former FLOTUS when she needed to, advocating for changes in how we perceive and treat mental and behavioral health in America. Considering how Jimmy’s successor felt about mental health, it was almost payback during “The Great Communicator’s” final days. You had to take mental and behavioral health very seriously rather than just passively dismissing it as “laziness.” A lot of people with mental health are very productive and then they crash. Rosalynn could see that.
Through her help with Habitat for Humanity, the Carter Center, United Way and other organizations, she was able to make differences that matter. Maybe it was because both Jimmy and Rosalynn grew up in Plains, a very rural town even still in the 21st Century where white children and black children played while Jim Crow Segregation looms like a dark cloud over the community. These humble beginnings are more than likely how the Carters changed the idea of the First Family.
Even though they appeared to be just your typical Southern married couple, the Carters were revolutionary. On the heels of the failure of the Equal Rights Act, Rosalynn was going to prove that she wasn’t going to stay in the kitchen and bake cookies like some wanted or throw tea parties for wives of foreign leaders. She was the first First Lady to set up an office in the East Wing and hire a staff. People said she even carried a briefcase with her every day. To understand it, you had to grow up in the South. Most women worked jobs and did their wife and mother duties. Despite what you see in The Help, a lot of women busted their butts keeping themselves busy with work, family life and room for a social life.
Rosalynn set the framework for Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton and even Laura Bush decided to take the role more seriously. Some people may not like her simply for how they didn’t like Jimmy’s policies or that they are just programmed by their conservative Republican views to despise all Democrats, but even the publisher of the Americus Times-Recorder, a Republican himself, gave the Carters front page news. She was an important woman in the history of American politics and government whether people want to admit it or not.
I find it hypocritical and ironic, people chastised the Carters for their rural Georgia background as peanut farmers. Yeah, some of them peanut farmers are living happy with nice big accounts. Never underestimate farmers and ranchers based on what they do or how they look. Some of the most money-rich peoeple I have seen wear overalls and ride rusty tractors. As I once heard, the best farmers/ranchers take care of their barns better than themselves.
Yes, there were a few things she probably regretted like the photo op with a Chicago-area businessman named John Wayne Gacy, but I’m sure other Presidents shook hands with world leaders with more blood on their hands. Jimmy met Rosalynn when he was just a wee lad himself and they grew up together, later dated and then married celebrating 77 years together (the longest ever of any First Couple). Jimmy and Rosalynn were the epitome of the “American Dream.” They grew up in humble beginnings, worked their ways to the top, stayed together as a couple through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, and they managed to make things better for those around them without expecting anything back.
All in all, they weren’t just the First Family, they were the American Family. They were what everyone should want. Sadly, I know Jimmy probably will pass away soon. He’s lost her now. The sadness and grief isn’t what he needs right now as his health is getting worse himself. My heart goes out for him and his family. I may not be religious, but if there is a Heaven, Rosalynn definitely earned her wings. And I know she’s waiting for Jimmy, because he’s earned it too.
Zane Says 