The daughter of former President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter died on November 19 at the age of 96. Her husband, Jimmy Carter, who turned 99 last month, was with her at their home in Georgia, their son told The Washington Post.
This summer was the Carters’ 77th wedding anniversary. They had been the longest-married presidential couple in U.S. history for a while at that point. This week, new information came out about Rosalynn Carter’s last moments and how the former president showed his love during those times.
The couple’s son, James E. Carter III, also known as “Chip,” wrote about his parents’ last days together in The Post comments that came out on November 23. During the gathering in their bedroom on Saturday night, he said that his father sat in his wheelchair next to Rosalynn Carter’s bed.

Chip Carter told the newspaper, “My dad told her he loved her and thanked her for all the great things she had done.” “Then he asked us to leave so he could be alone with her.”
Jimmy went to his wife Rosalynn’s funeral in Atlanta on Tuesday and heard their daughter Amy read out loud a letter Jimmy had written to Rosalynn when he was in the Navy 75 years ago.
“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I return to discover just how wonderful you are,” it said. “… Goodbye, sweetheart. Hi Jimmy, until tomorrow.”
Rosalynn Carter started hospice care at her and her husband’s home in Georgia not long before she died. The Carter Center told the public about the news on Friday through their grandson Jason Carter. The statement said, “She and President Carter are spending time with each other and their family.” The Carter family still wants privacy and is thankful for all the love and support that has been shown.

The Carter Center told the family in May that the former first lady had been diagnosed with dementia. She kept living at home in Plains, the small farming town in central Georgia where she and her husband grew up and where they later moved back to live.
In February, the Carter Center said that Jimmy Carter was getting hospice care at home after a few short stays in the hospital. The former president started the charity in 1982. At the time, they said in a statement that he “chosen to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of further medical intervention.” The center didn’t say why he had recently had short hospital stays, but the former president had treatment in August 2015 to have a small cancerous mass removed from his liver. He then said the next year that he didn’t need any more medical care because an experimental drug had gotten rid of the cancer.
During the months since Jimmy Carter entered hospice care, Chip Carter told the Washington Post that he had talked to his father and that the former president had been worried that he might die before his wife, which was something he hadn’t thought about before.
“Dad told me several times over the last nine months that he had always thought he would outlive Mom and protect her until she passed, but that now he wasn’t sure that was going to happen — and that upset him,” he said. “But he lived.” We all told him how proud we were of seeing him with her and taking care of her.

Chip Carter said that Rosalynn Carter’s husband sat next to her hospital bed in his wheelchair and held her hand for about 30 minutes before she died. He had asked their family to leave their bedroom first. “I’m sure he was praying,” said Chip Carter.
Reports from the Washington Post say that late Saturday night, Jimmy Carter’s staff helped him into his own hospital bed and put it next to his wife’s so that they could talk. But Rosalynn Carter’s health got worse overnight. The former first lady and well-known humanitarian died the next afternoon at 2:10 p.m., according to a statement from the Carter Center that same day. The group that helped her said she died “peacefully, with family by her side.”
“Tears were coming out of his eyes,” Chip Carter told the Washington Post about Jimmy Carter’s presence at the event. After Rosalynn Carter died, family members spent time in the bedroom. But, Chip Carter said, his father asked everyone to leave the room again so that he and his wife could be alone.
“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever did,” Ronald Reagan said in a statement released by the Carter Center after her death. She taught me good things and cheered me on when I needed it. Because Rosalynn was alive, I always knew someone loved and cared about me.
The Carters met for the first time in Plains. Rosalynn Carter was only one day old and Jimmy Carter was three years old. A little over a year before they got married in 1946, the former president met the woman who went by the name Rosalynn Smith through his younger sister. She was related to us.
The White House published an in-depth account of their relationship. It says that Jimmy Carter told his mother, “She’s the girl I want to marry,” after their first date. Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter got married on July 7, 1946. He was home from school at the U.S. Naval Academy, and she was in college. A lot of times, they moved because he was in the Navy. All four of their children were born in different U.S. states. After Jimmy Carter got out of the Navy, his family moved back to Georgia and ran Carter’s Warehouse, a seed and farm supply business in Plains. They also ran the farm that Jimmy Carter had inherited.

When Rosalynn Carter’s husband ran for the Georgia Senate in 1962, she was on his campaign team. She stayed involved in his political career as he went on to become governor of Georgia in 1970 and then president of the United States. He once said that his wife was “much more political,” and Rosalynn said of campaigning, “I love it. I had the best time.” I went to every state in the US. The Associated Press says, “I worked hard every day during the last campaign.”
In addition to their professional legacies—Rosalynn Carter is especially remembered for working to bring mental health issues into the national conversation without stigma at a time when that had never been done before—the Carters were also known for their strong and lasting bond and the charitable work they did together.
Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter worked together to grow Habitat for Humanity, an organization that builds affordable homes, and the Carter Center, their charity that works to protect human rights and “ease human suffering.”
Roslyn Carter’s deep care for everyone and her unwavering determination to help them touched people all over the world. “Each of you has told us something wonderful since she died,” her family said in a statement after she died. “Thank you all for joining us in celebrating what a treasure she was, not only to us, but to all humanity.”