A real-life love story for the ages.
Maybe storybook romantic sagas aren’t just for the big screens and romance novels. For 77 years, former President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn stayed at each other’s sides through thick and thin, including during Carter’s four years in the White House and his life-threatening battle with cancer in 2015.
The pair remained devoted to each other until the end, when the Rosalynn Carter passed away on Nov. 19 at age 96, about two days after she entered hospice care.
“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.”
Here’s how the apparent soulmates first met, how their love evolved over the years, and how they’ve handled their respective health crises as a unit.
When did Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter first meet?
The couple have known each other almost their whole lives. They both grew up in the small town of Plains, Georgia, and Jimmy actually met Rosalynn just days after she was born. Little did he know at the time that he’d wind up marrying her.
Though Rosalynn became childhood friends with Jimmy’s younger sister Ruth, there wasn’t much of a spark until the future president left for the United States Naval Academy. When Jimmy returned home for the summer of 1945, he noticed the shy 17-year-old and asked her out to the movies. Afterwards, the lovebirds shared a kiss and their whirlwind romance continued long-distance as Jimmy finished his schooling.
A year later, they were married, proving that when you know, you know. They began their married life together with a series of moves around the country, with deployments to Virginia, Hawaii, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Despite all of this moving around, they went on to have four children together, Amy and sons Jack, Jeff, and Chip.
Eventually, Jimmy resigned from the Navy in 1953 after his father died, and he moved his family to Georgia so the couple could run the Carter family’s peanut farming business together.
When did the couple become politically active?
After moving back home, they got involved with their community through a local Baptist church and also became more politically active amid racial tensions sparked by Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public schools.
In 1962, Jimmy won a seat in the Georgia State Senate before becoming the state’s governor nine years later. His victories can be partially attributed to Rosalynn, who crisscrossed the Peach State campaigning tirelessly. As first lady, she began working on causes, like mental health, that she would continue to champion throughout her public life.
Then she hit the campaign trail again when Carter announced his candidacy for the 1976 presidential election. When Carter won, the couple and their youngest child, Amy, moved to the White House, where Rosalynn became one of her husband’s most trusted advisors. She even sat in on Cabinet meetings, advised on staff moves, and acted as an envoy on overseas trips.
Later on, she became the first presidential spouse to have her own office in the East Wing. The couple were so closely aligned that Jimmy referred to Rosalynn as a “perfect extension of himself.”
How did the couple adjust to life after Jimmy’s presidency?
After losing reelection to President Ronald Reagan in 1980, Jimmy and Rosalynn returned to their home in Georgia once again, where they started the Atlanta-based Carter Center and worked with Habitat for Humanity to build more than 4,300 homes for the unhoused.
These selfless acts didn’t go unnoticed. In 2002, Jimmy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
In addition to his humanitarian work, Jimmy has also gained recognition for his marriage with Rosalynn. In March 2019, they made headlines for being the longest-married presidential couple. Together, they surpassed George H.W. and Barbara Bush’s previous record. At the time, they had been married 26,765 days — or more than 73 years — which surpassed the previous record held by former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, who had been married 73 years and 111 days when Barbara Bush died in April 2018.
“The best thing I ever did was marry Rosalynn,” Jimmy Carter once said during a C-SPAN interview at The Carter Center. “That’s the pinnacle of my life.”
How has the couple navigated their various health battles?
Now, four years later, the lovebirds are still going strong. In July, they celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary, but it hasn’t been an easy road.
In 2015, Jimmy announced that he was diagnosed with a type of skin cancer known as melanoma that had spread to his liver and brain. Then just months after undergoing radiation therapy and treatment, doctors declared that he had beat it. Unfortunately, four years later, he suffered a series of dangerous falls at his Georgia home, which eventually landed him in hospice care.
Despite these setbacks, Jimmy credits his marriage to his wife for his longevity. “I think the best explanation for that is to marry the best spouse, someone who will take care of you and engage and do things to challenge you and keep you alive and interested in life,” he told People magazine in 2019 after one of his falls.
Rosalynn has also faced her own health challenges, too. In May, her family announced that the former first lady had dementia, but like her husband, she has found strength in her marriage. “She continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains and visits with loved ones,” the family said via The Carter Center.
By this point, you’re probably wondering what the secret is to their success. The pair have talked very openly about their marriage: In 2021, Jimmy told Good Morning America that what made their relationship so strong was having lives separate from one another while balancing shared interests.
“We’ve survived this long together because first of all, we give each other plenty of space to do our own thing,” Jimmy said at the time. Rosalynn also chimed in saying they’re always “looking to do things or find things we can do together, like fly fishing and bird watching and just going out to the pond, catch a fish.”
If that isn’t love, then we don’t know what is.
