I’ve always said President Jimmy Carter was my first U.S. President.
Since I was born in 1970, I suppose technically, President Richard Nixon should be the name with this distinction since his time in the White House spanned from 1969 until his resignation in 1974.
However, it’s President Carter’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 1977, which is forever etched in my memory as my first knowledge of a first family moving into the White House.
I found myself teary and choked up when I heard the news of President Carter’s passing on Sunday from the Associated Press: “Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, roughly 22 months after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said.”
A guide to funeral services for former President Jimmy Carter
I was 6 years old and in first grade when Mrs. Paula Swanson had our class join the others on the stage area of the gymnasium for our tiny San Pierre Elementary School to watch the pomp and circumstances of the swearing-in, on a color TV set positioned on a high wheeled cart.
For my 6-year-old’s mind and imagination, it was fascinating for me to know that not only was our new president a farmer, but a peanut farmer! Of course, peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches on toast were a favorite staple of my menu and diet.
Another reason my classmates and I knew so much about the Carter family is because of the first newspaper I ever recall reading, a beloved resource never taken for granted, “The Weekly Reader,” which I eagerly devoured with my hunger for information and curiosity about all people and events.
Founded in 1928 in Columbus, Ohio, this kid-sized newspaper spoon-fed elementary students all of the top international and national news of the day. It ceased publication in 2012.
It was easy for kids to embrace the Carters as the new occupants of the White House because they also had a daughter, named Amy, who at 9 years old was our peer when her father was elected to the White House and she moved in, along with her three older brothers.
For four years, The Weekly Reader kept up with detailed reports of Amy’s every step while chronicling her famous political parents. The media, TV comedians and talk show hosts were often unkind to Amy, a tradition that began decades earlier with first daughter Margaret Truman, and then later, the same snide treatment of Chelsea Clinton.
Amy opted to stay out of the media attention after the first family left their White House years behind.
Some of her first public appearances were just a year ago, when at age 56, now a wife and mother, she delivered a heartfelt tribute to her mother during the November 2023 funeral services for Rosalynn Carter. Amy’s older brothers, John William “Jack” Carter, 76, James Earl “Chip” Carter III, 73, and Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff” Carter, 71, are more active with The Carter Center, which was founded by their parents in Atlanta, Georgia.
I can recall joining my older brother and sister and our parents in 1977, gathered in the living room to watch a TV special called “Lucy Calls the President” which ranks as the last time actresses Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball were reunited for the CBS network. I’ve only ever seen this broadcast once in my life as a child, but the two things I do recall are one, faint detail of a story plot that had President Jimmy Carter planning to stop at the home of Lucy’s character as a media and photo opportunity.
However, President Carter is never seen or heard, with the exception that Lucy is portrayed as talking to him on the telephone. The president’s mother, Lillian Carter, did do a brief cameo appearance on the TV special. My other memory of this program still etched in my mind is that Lucy baked and decorated a huge sheet cake with a large portrait likeness of a smiling Jimmy Carter crafted from frosting and sporting roasted peanuts as his teeth.
In October 1998, I had the honor of interviewing President Carter at the Borders bookstore along State Street in Chicago when he was in town to promote his new book. He will forever rank as one of my favorite interview highlights of my journalism career. I made the trek into the city for the interview with my “Girl Friday,” my late and wonderful friend Irene Jakubowski, who had just retired. From the young boy plucked from cornfields in Starke County reading about President Carter in my classroom desk in The Weekly Reader, suddenly I was face-to-face with a world leader in a lifetime rare full-circle moment I’ll never forget.
Carter, then age 74, with a kind and welcoming nature (despite stern Secret Service agents framing him) had just published his 13th book, titled “The Virtues of Aging” ($18.95 Ballantine Publishing 1998) which was about how to live out and enjoy retirement years.
“I’m proud of how hard I have fought for human rights, but I most want to be remembered as a good husband, father and church member,” President Carter told me.
“When we reach retirement, not only do we have our blessings to be thankful for, but we also have the benefit of our knowledge to share with others.”
For those critics who didn’t like his book’s title and questioned what merits could be advantageous when associated with aging, President Carter, who lived to see age 100, had a perfect retort.
“Consider the other alternative to not aging anymore,” Carter said.
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@powershealth.org.
