Former first lady Rosalynn Carter had entered hospice care on Friday at home in Plains, Georgia.
WASHINGTON — Rosalynn Carter, the former First Lady of the United States who changed what it meant to serve in that role, has died. She was 96.
The Carter Center announced her death on Sunday afternoon.
On Friday, Carter had entered hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia. The family announced earlier this year that the former first lady had been diagnosed with dementia. The former president, now 99, entered hospice care at home in February.
Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was born in Plains, Georgia on August 18, 1927. She was the eldest of four children. When she was 13, her father, Wilburn Edgar Smith, died of leukemia. Rosalynn was forced to take charge of her family while her mother got a job.
She later credited her mother, Frances Allethea Murray Smith, with infusing her with a sense of independence.
“I learned from my mother you can do what you have to do,” she told the Chicago Tribune in 2002.
Rosalynn attended Plains High School and graduated from Georgia Southwestern College in 1946.
Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter were married on July 7, 1946 – one month before Rosalynn’s 19th birthday. They had three sons over the next six years — John William, James Earl III and Donnel Jeffrey – and then waited another 15 years before having a daughter, Amy.
She was a full partner with Jimmy in business and as he entered local, state and national politics. Jimmy declared Rosalynn was the “only politician in the family” – and he meant it.
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