Rosalynn Carter
Eleanor Rosalynn Smith Carter (born August 18, 1927) is the wife of former President Jimmy Carter and was First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981.
Early life
Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was born in Plains, Georgia, the eldest of the four children of Frances Allethea "Allie" Murray (1904–1997), a dressmaker, and Edgar Smith (1896-1940), an automobile mechanic and farmer. Siblings include Lillian "Allethea" Smith.
Her father died of leukemia when she was 13, and she helped her mother raise her younger siblings as well as assist her dressmaking in order to meet the family's financial needs. She graduated as valedictorian of Plains High School. She then attended Georgia Southwestern College.
Marriage and family
Although they had known each other earlier, Rosalynn Smith first dated Jimmy Carter in 1945 while he was at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. On July 7, 1946, they married in Plains.
Carter is the mother of four children: John William "Jack" (1947-), James Earl III "Chip" (1950-), Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" (1952-), and Amy Lynn (1967-). The first three were born in different parts of the country and away from Georgia, due to her husband's military duties.
In 1953, after her husband left the Navy, she helped him run the family peanut farming and warehousing business, handling the accounting responsibilities.
Since 1962, the year Jimmy Carter was elected state senator of Georgia, Rosalynn has been active in the political arena.
First Lady of Georgia
As First Lady of Georgia, Rosalynn was appointed to the Governor's Commission to Improve Services for the Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped. The Commission presented recommendations to Governor Carter, many of which were approved and then became law. Rosalynn also served as a volunteer at the Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia and for five years was honorary chairperson for the Georgia Special Olympics for Mentally Challenged Children.
Campaigning
In January 1975, when her husband's gubernatorial term was over, Mr. Carter, along with Rosalynn and Amy, went back to Plains. He had already announced his plans to run for President of the United States. Rosalynn returned to the campaign trail, this time in a national quest for support for her husband. She campaigned alone on his behalf in 41 states.
During the months she was campaigning across the country, Rosalynn was elected to the board of directors of the National Association of Mental Health; she was honored by the National Organization for Women with an Award of Merit for her vigorous support for the Equal Rights Amendment; and she received the volunteer of the Year Award from the Southwestern Association of Volunteer Services.
First Lady of the United States
In January 1977, she and her husband walked hand-in-hand down Pennsylvania Avenue during his inauguration. Not one for ostentation, she packed a picnic lunch for that day and wore a six-year-old dress during the ceremony.
Rosalynn Carter was dubbed The Steel Magnolia by the White House press corps, for her combination of Southern sweetness and tenacious drive. It was no secret that she was one of her husband's closest advisors and confidants, and she sat in on many Cabinet meetings; indeed she became the first First Lady to carry a briefcase to her office in the White House.
During her years in the White House, Rosalynn was honored by many organizations and received a handful of awards. She served as honorary chair of the President's Commission on Mental Health, the work of which resulted in the passage of the Mental Health Systems Act. She was also named the Volunteer of the Decade by the National Mental Health Association.
During the 1980 presidential campaign, Rosalynn Carter again participated vigorously on behalf of her husband. When a campaign manager informed the couple the weekend before the election that the latest internal polls showed what had been a tight race tipping in Ronald Reagan's direction and that they were going to lose, Rosalynn doubled over in anguish.
Later life
Since returning to Plains, Mrs. Carter has received the Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Service Award for Leadership Christian Social Ethics from the Christian Life Commission of in the Southern Baptist Convention and in August of 1983, she was elected to the board of directors of the Gannett Company, Inc. In April 1984, Mrs. Carter became a member of the board of advisors of Habitat for Humanity, Inc. Her autobiography, First Lady from Plains, was published in May 1984. That same month, she was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and is also board member emeritus of the National Mental Health Association.
In 2001 she was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame.
She is currently a global human rights activist and co-chair of the Carter Center.
References
- Portions of this article are based on public domain text from ibiblio. [1]