Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, wife of Jimmy Carter, dies at age 96

Rosalynn Carter, the wife of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter for 77 years, died on Sunday at the age of 96 with her family by her side.

Carter suffered from dementia, her family revealed in May of 2023. The Carter Center announced she passed away at her and her husband's longtime home in Plains, Ga., the small town in which they both were born. Jimmy Carter, who turned 99 on Oct. 1, remains under home hospice care. He is the longest-lived president of the 45 men who have held office. 

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” President Carter said in a statement. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

Rosalynn Carter served as first lady from 1977 to 1981, remaining an advocate for health care, mental health and the importance of familial caregivers long after leaving the White House.

She married Jimmy Carter on July 7, 1946. In 2019, they became the longest-married first couple in U.S. history after surpassing George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, who were wed for 73 years. 

Born Eleanor Rosalynn Smith on Aug. 18, 1927, she was delivered by Jimmy Carter's mother Lillian, a nurse, in the Smith family home, according to the Associated Press. Lillian brought her two-year-old son to meet the newborn days later.

Nearly a century later, the two remain united.  

“It’s a full partnership,” the 39th president told The Associated Press during a joint interview ahead of the couple’s 75th wedding anniversary in 2021.

That official partnership began after the two married when Rosalynn was 18 years old and Jimmy was 20. The couple moved from Plains when Jimmy served as a Naval officer and Rosalynn a military wife, but they returned after James Earl Carter Sr., Jimmy's father, became ill and died in 1953.

Jimmy Carter resigned from the U.S. Navy and managed his father's farm supply business with Rosalynn, incorporating the growth of peanut seeds.

“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 the AP in 2021. “I knew more on paper about the business than he did. He would take my advice about things."

Rosalynn Carter campaigned vigorously for her husband, first during his successful run for Georgia governor and then during the 1976 presidential election, which Carter won in a landslide. Rosalynn Carter went on to set the standard for first ladies working on key legislation, establishing her own East Wing office.

“Her incredible ability is to both look at a problem from the need for policy changes, and to think about the individual who lives next door or down the street and is struggling,” Jennifer Olsen, who leads the Rosalynn Carter Institute, recently said.

After losing a reelection bid in 1980, the couple opened The Carter Center, a human rights organization in Atlanta that strives to advance world peace and health. Rosalynn traveled extensively with her husband to bring awareness to and destigmatize mental health. She also pushed multiple U.S. administrations to establish an office within the Department of Health and Human Services dedicated exclusively to advocating for those in caregiving relationships with loved ones.

“Mrs. Carter often noted that there are only four kinds of people in this world: those who have been caregivers; those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers,” her family wrote in a statement when they announced her dementia diagnosis in May. “We are experiencing the joy and the challenges of this journey.”

The Carters have four children and 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“Besides being a loving mother and extraordinary First Lady, my mother was a great humanitarian in her own right,” their son, Chip Carter, said in a statement. “Her life of service and compassion was an example for all Americans. She will be sorely missed not only by our family but by the many people who have better mental health care and access to resources for caregiving today.”

Rosalynn Carter celebrated her 96th birthday in August with her husband and family at their home in Plains, a town with fewer than 1,000 residents. She marked the occasion by releasing butterflies into the Carters' garden and enjoying peanut butter ice cream in a nod to her and her husband's experience as Georgia peanut farmers.  

Carter was the second-oldest presidential spouse in U.S. history, behind only Bess Truman, the wife of Harry S. Truman, who was 97 when she died in 1982.

The Associated Press contributed to this story