Rosalynn Carter: ‘The Best Part’ Ended. Then Came the White House.
Highlights from her autobiography
Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady of the United States, died today at age 96. In her 1984 autobiography, First Lady from Plains, she recalled:
“With Jimmy’s [1977] inaugural, we hoped to set a tone for an open, inclusive administration, one that would focus on all kinds of people…We planned a simple inauguration, a ‘people’s’ inauguration, so that everyone who came would find something fun or meaningful to do.”
She understood that “we are answerable to all the people — and indebted to so many whom we will try forever and never be able to repay.”
She Grew Up in Plains, Georgia
Rosalynn was born in 1927 to Frances Allethea “Allie” Murray and Wilburn Edgar Smith. She grew up in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where her mother grew flowers like “zinnias, petunias, hollyhocks, [and] crepe myrtle” as well as “fig, pear, pecan and wild cherry [trees], and pomegranate bushes.” Young Rosalynn once tumbled out of the sitting room window into a rosebush. They had a milk cow, pigs and chickens. She learned to sew. There was “no movie theater, no library, no recreation center,” but she read “Heidi and Hans Brinker and Robinson Crusoe.”
