Memorials begin for Rosalynn Carter

Tributes highlight her reach as first lady, humanitarian and small-town Baptist

Rosalynn Carter embarked on her final journey Monday to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center as her family began three days of memorials for the former first lady and global humanitarian who died Nov. 19 at the age of 96.

Family including Rosalynn Carter’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren watched as her casket was placed in a hearse Monday morning outside Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in the Carters’ native Sumter County in south Georgia. Onlookers huddled beside the road on a breezy, chilly morning.

The motorcade made its first stop at Rosalynn Carter’s alma mater, the nearby Georgia Southwestern State University. The Carters’ four children — Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy — watched as wreaths of white flowers were placed beside a statue of their mother on the campus.

From there, the family motorcade began its trip of more than 225 kilometres to Atlanta, where Rosalynn Carter will lie in repose at The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

The library will be open from 6 to 10 p.m., offering the most direct opportunity for the public to pay their respects during the three-day tribute. Two funerals, set for Tuesday in Atlanta and Wednesday in the Carters’ tiny hometown of Plains, are for invited guests.

U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, longtime friends of the Carters, lead the dignitaries expected to attend the Atlanta service. Motorcade routes will be open throughout the schedule. Rosalynn Carter’s burial Wednesday in Plains is private.

It is not known whether the former president, who is 99 and in his 10th month of hospice care, will take part in the events. Those close to his immediate family have said he will make every effort as he grieves his partner of more than 77 years. The schedule, a product of detailed planning that involved the former first couple, reflects the range of Rosalynn Carter’s interests and impact. That includes her advocacy for better mental health treatment and the elevation of caregiving, her role as Jimmy Carter’s closest adviser and her status as matriarch of Plains and Maranatha Baptist Church, where she and the former president served in various roles after leaving the White House in 1981.

“All over the world, people are celebrating her life,” said Kim Fuller, the Carters’ niece, while teaching a Bible lesson Sunday at Maranatha. “And of course we’re coming into a week now where we’re gonna celebrate even more.”

A detailed schedule is available online. Events will be streamed and broadcast by independent media.

Some well-wishers began honouring Rosalynn Carter soon after her death, including an uptick in visitors to the Presidential Center campus.

“Mental health is more openly talked about” because of Rosalynn Carter’s work to reduce the stigma attached to the conditions, said Brendan Green, a high school guidance counsellor who came from Chicago.

“She was a pioneer in that field,” Green said. “What a great legacy.”

At Georgia Southwestern State University, where the former first lady graduated in 1946 when it was Georgia Southwestern College, a few hundred gathered as the Carter family arrived for a short wreath-laying ceremony. The campus is home to the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving, which she founded to advocate for the millions of unpaid caregivers in American households.

“Mrs. Carter wanted a more caring society,” Jennifer Olsen, the institute’s leader, said ahead of the ceremony. “You can see that in whether it was the international work that she did with President Carter or things right here in Sumter County. So it’s perfectly fitting to me that the Caregiver Institute is the first stop.”

Elizabeth Laudig, a registered nurse from Dallas, said she drove 12 hours to be in Georgia this week Laudig, 54, said Rosalynn Carter’s emphasis on mental health and caregivers was especially inspiring to her as a nurse.