Remembering them!
This family could not even be in a ‘Whitehouse’ for more than four year but has been building homes for you ever since!
40 plus year actually ever since he left college in 1946!
"The definition of
insanity" is the most overused cliché ...
This one political party has been doing this to you ever since and are
poised to do it again in 2022/2024!
Jimmy, Rosalynn Carter Mark 75 Years of ‘Full Partnership’
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter holds hands with his wife
Rosalynn Carter as they work with other volunteers for Habitat for Humanity in
Mishawaka, Indiana, Aug. 27, 2018. (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune)
By Associated Press
July 04, 2021 07:33 AM
ATLANTA,
GA. - The young midshipman needed a date one evening while he was home from the
U.S. Naval Academy, so his younger sister paired him with a family friend who
already had a crush.
Nearly
eight decades later, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are still together in the same
tiny town where they were born, grew up and had that first outing. In between,
they’ve traveled the world as Naval officer and military spouse, American
president and first lady, and finally as human rights and public health
ambassadors.
“It’s a
full partnership,” the 39th president told The Associated Press during a joint
interview ahead of the couple’s 75th wedding anniversary on July 7.
It will be
another milestone for the longest-married presidential couple in American
history. At 96, Carter also is the longest-lived of the 45 men who’ve served as
chief executive. Yet even having reached that pinnacle, Carter has said often
since leaving the Oval Office in 1981 that the most important decision he ever
made wasn’t as head of state, commander in chief or even executive officer of a
nuclear submarine in the early years of the Cold War.
Rather, it
was falling for Eleanor Rosalynn Smith in 1945 and marrying her the following
summer. “My biggest secret is to marry the right person if you want to have a
long-lasting marriage,” Carter said.
The
nonagenarians — she’s now 93 — offered a few other tips for an enduring bond.
“Every day
there needs to be reconciliation and communication between the two spouses,”
the former president said, explaining that he and Rosalynn, both devout
Christians, read the Bible together aloud each night — something they’ve done
for years, even when separated by their travels. “We don’t go to sleep with
some remaining differences between us,” he said.
Rosalynn
Carter noted the importance of finding common interests. Even now, she said,
“Jimmy and I are always looking for things to do together.” Still, she
emphasized a caveat: “Each (person) should have some space. That’s really
important.”
As first
lady, Rosalynn Carter carved her own identity even as she supported her
husband. Building on her predecessors’ efforts to highlight special causes, she
went to work in her own East Wing office, setting a standard for first ladies
by working alongside her husband’s West Wing aides on key legislation,
especially dealing with health care and mental health. She continued that focus
as the couple built the Carter Center in Atlanta after their White House years.
Certainly,
a 75-year marriage hasn’t been seamless, the couple acknowledges.
Jimmy was
initially on course to be an admiral, not commander in chief, and Rosalynn
appreciated their life beyond Plains, home to fewer than a thousand people,
then and now. But when James Earl Carter Sr. became sick and died in 1953, his
son cut short his Navy career and decided the family would return to rural
Georgia.
The former
president has written that in retrospect he finds it inconceivable not to
discuss such a life-changing decision with his wife, who was unhappy with the
move. Now, they see the blossoming of their partnership in that challenging
juncture.
“We
developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and
it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP. “I
knew more on paper about the business than he did. He would take my advice
about things,” she added, drawing a laugh and affirmation from her husband.
Jimmy
Carter also didn’t seek Rosalynn’s permission to make his first bid for office
a few years later. In that instance, she was on board anyway.
“My wife is
much more political,” he said.
She
interjected: “I love it. I love campaigning. I had the best time. I was in all
the states in the United States. I campaigned solid every day the last time we
ran.”
That didn’t
help avoid a rout by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. But it further cemented
Rosalynn — who’d originally given up her own opportunity to go to college when
she married at age 18 — as equal partner to the leader of the free world. And
it marked Jimmy Carter’s evolution as a spouse.
He’s since
been an outspoken voice for women’s rights, including within Christianity.
Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006, denouncing what he called
“rigid” views that “subjugated” women in the church and in their own marriages.
The former
president ratified those views again, as well as his support for the church
recognizing same-sex marriage. “It will continue to be divisive,” he said. “But
the church is evolving.”
The Carters
plan to celebrate their own marriage milestone a few days after their
anniversary with a party in Plains. Decades removed from inaugural balls and
state dinners, the most famous residents of Sumter County said they have mixed
feelings about the spotlight.
“We have
too many people invited,” Rosalynn Carter said with a laugh. “I’m actually
praying for some turndowns and regrets.
