Rosalynn Carter Is In Hospice Alongside President Jimmy Carter

PLAINS, GA — Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, 96, is in hospice care alongside former President Jimmy Carter, 99, at their home in Plains, Georgia, the Carter Center said Friday.

In a statement, the Carter family said they are “grateful for the outpouring of love and support” for the former first couple. In May, the family said Mrs. Carter was diagnosed with dementia. The former president entered hospice care at home in February.

"She continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains, [Georgia], and visits with loved ones," The Carter Center said in a statement at the time.

“The best thing I ever had happen in my life was when she said she’d marry me,” Jimmy Carter said, long after leaving the Oval Office, according to The Associated Press.

That marriage has endured 77 years, through Mr. Carter's years as a Georgia peanut farmer, his rise in local and state politics and the Democrat's surprise election to the presidency in 1976.

After his re-election bid fell short in 1980, the couple established The Carter Center to champion human rights, democracy and public health. Together, they have raised the profile of Habitat for Humanity — and the critical need for affordable housing worldwide — by working alongside 103,000 volunteers to build, renovate or repair more than 4,300 homes in 14 countries.

In a recent interview with the AP, Jason Carter described his grandmother as the former president's “partner No. 1, 2 and 3.” The couple agreed she has been the more aggressive political personality of their long pairing, AP said.

During her husband's years in the White House, Rosalynn Carter was described by the Washington press corps as “the Steel Magnolia” — a nod to the quiet, stereotypical grace of the era’s Southern political wives and a tough core that made her a force on her husband’s behalf and in her own right.

“She knew what she wanted to accomplish,” Kathy Cade, a White House adviser to Rosalynn Carter, told AP.

As first lady, Mrs. Carter carved out new territory. She had her own office and staff and worked on her own initiatives, especially as an advocate for mental health care, which was a topic not always openly dealt with in the 1970s. She publicly disclosed her dementia diagnosis in May, in part, to “increase important conversations at kitchen tables and in doctor’s offices around the country,” according to a statement released by the Carter Center at the time.

During her husband's time in the White House, she was often at his side in top-level meetings with his advisers, raising eyebrows among Washington's political elite.

“She didn’t say anything in Cabinet meetings, but she wanted to be fully informed so she could give her husband good advice,” said Carter biographer Jonathan Alter, who considers Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton as her only peers as influential first ladies.

At 99, Jimmy Carter is the oldest-living American president and the longest-living president in U.S. history. The Carters, the longest-married presidential couple in U.S. history, appeared together in public, attending the Plains Peanut Festival in their hometown.

The couple raised four children — three sons and a daughter, Amy, who grew up in the White House. They are the grandparents to 12 (one deceased) and great-grandparents to 14 children, according to the Jimmy Carter Library.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden have “stayed in touch” with the former president’s team to “ensure that their family knows that they are certainly in the president and first lady’s thoughts,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last spring following the announcement of Rosalynn Carter’s diagnosis.