Jimmy Carter came from a hard-working family, so it only makes sense that he would build
one of his own – and that family is poised to carry his humanitarian legacy into the future.
A marriage of over 75 years is impressive enough, but leave it to Jimmy and Rosalynn
Carter to go above and beyond in their lifelong relationship. Even though Rosalynn was best
friends with Jimmy's little sister Ruth, that didn't stop her from falling for Carter. For
the book What Makes a Marriage Last, she told authors Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue that she
fell in love with the photo of Jimmy on Ruth's bedroom wall. She added that her
mother said the infatuation "must have been his white uniform." Jimmy was in the Navy.
While Jimmy was home from school in the summer of 1945, he impulsively asked Rosalynn on a date
after another date didn't pan out. The two went to the movies and had their first kiss. After
that one date, Jimmy knew Rosalynn was the woman he was going to marry and told his mother as much.
Funnily enough, Rosalynn said no when Jimmy proposed for the
first time because she wanted to finish college first. Before her father died,
she'd promised him that she would graduate. Jimmy eventually got the answer he was looking for,
and the two were married on July 7, 1946. Jimmy has often said,
"Well, the best thing I ever did was marrying Rosalynn."
Both Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are in their 90s,
going on eight decades of marriage, and they still manage to make it look easy.
"Life with Jimmy Carter has been an adventure."
They've learned a lot in their lives together, not just about one another, but about relationships
in general. Looking back on their 75 years together, Jimmy told Good Morning America,
"First of all, we give each other plenty of space to do our own thing."
The former president said that the ups and
downs he and Rosalynn had been through together were exciting.
The couple shares a great deal of personal history, but their relationship has grown just
as much as they have. During Jimmy's 90th birthday party, Rosalynn said,
"Over the years, we became not only friends and lovers, but partners. He has always thought I
could do anything, and because of that, [we] have had some wonderful adventures and challenges."
In fact, making your partner in love also your partner in life
is one of the rules Jimmy has for a long marriage.
Jimmy advised to not "go to bed angry" and to enjoy one another's company. Given
that the former first couple has spent nearly their entire lifetimes together,
Jimmy's marriage advice is probably pretty solid. Given his house-building hobby,
he knows a good foundation when he sees one.
Despite avoiding the political limelight for most of his life, Jimmy Carter's oldest son,
Jack, ran for the U.S. Senate in Nevada in 2006. Jack decided to hit
the campaign trail after getting fed up with the Republican Party. His opponent,
John Ensign, was a Republican incumbent. In a pre-election interview, Carter told NPR,
"There's a difference between the Republicans that I grew up with, as an example, and the ones that
we have today. They wanted to be fiscally sound, but these guys here, in my opinion,
have run [our] country off the road, and we've got to go put it back up on the tracks."
Jack's background was in business, which he believed made him a fine
candidate. He was hospitalized for colitis during his campaign,
and his dad stepped in for him at a few speaking engagements. Jack didn't win the election.
Jack has two children, Jason and Sarah, with his first wife,
Judy. Jack and Judy Langford married in 1971, though the two eventually divorced. He then
married Elizabeth Brasfield in 1992. The couple lived in Bermuda for a while before moving to
Las Vegas in 2003. Jack has two stepchildren with Elizabeth, John, a director, and Sarah, a painter.
Jimmy Carter's grandson, Jason Carter, was a member of the Georgia State Senate from
2010 to 2015. Though he knew his family name would help his political chances,
he wanted to earn it himself. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
"My family opened the doors, but ultimately I think people decided on me for my merit
and not my family. But, of course, my family helped. It's part of me."
"He also has to take it easy sometimes, especially if people did not vote for Jimmy Carter."
Jason was Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 2014, but he lost the general
election. He opted not to run again in 2018 in order to focus on his children.
Although she isn't a politician, Carter granddaughter Sarah Carter is also invested
in politics. She was a contributor to the Daily Kos, a liberal blog and forum, and volunteered
for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Reflecting on Obama's campaign, she wrote,
"Barack Obama made me realize that my political opinions were important
and that I had a responsibility to participate."
James Earl "Chip" Carter III works on political campaigns but isn't the star of them. According
to First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama, Chip has "spearheaded
various humanitarian missions for the Carter Center." He helped keep a civil war at bay
in Liberia by monitoring their elections. He's worked with the Democratic National Committee,
been part of the Plains City Council, and even acted as president of Friendship Force,
an international exchange program that his mom and dad founded. Despite his very public-facing work,
he's a pretty lowkey man. There isn't a lot known about him outside of his work.
"The worst thing was a little bit of intrusion by the press. But we had
Amy to take all the scrutiny, you know? So Amy got that. We didn't."
He has a son, James Earl IV, with his first wife,
Caron Griffin. After a divorce in 1980, Chip married Ginger Hodges, and they had a daughter,
Margaret Alicia, together. He now lives in Decatur with his third wife Becky Payne. Also,
Chip apparently smoked pot on the White House rooftop with Willie Nelson in 1977.
So even if we don't know a lot about the guy, that's a pretty fun fact.
Remember the video that surfaced in 2012 where then-presidential
candidate Mitt Romney said 47% of Americans were entitled freeloaders?
"There are 47% [...] who believe that they are entitled
to healthcare, to food, to housing, you name it."
It turns out it was discovered by Jimmy Carter's grandson James
Earl Carter IV. James found the video and dug around to discover who'd recorded it,
enabling Mother Jones to release it into the world.
He told NBC News he was motivated to do it
because Romney kept attacking his grandfather's presidency, saying,
"It gets under my skin — mostly the weakness on the foreign policy
stuff. I just think it's ridiculous. I don't like criticism of my family."
In 2013, at an event in Atlanta, James received a personal thanks
from President Obama for uncovering the Romney video. Former President Carter,
who was also there, said that Obama, quote, "ran across the room and thanked [James] profusely."
The third child of Jimmy and Rosalynn is Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter,
who co-founded Computer Mapping Consultants. The company worked in computer mapping and
became a consultancy for the World Bank in 1980. Jeff graduated from George Washington
University in 1978 with a geography degree and a specialty in computer
cartography. He and his wife, Annette Davis, had three children together.
Annette died in September 2021 at the age of 68. Joshua wrote her obituary, in which he outlined
how his mother and father helped during his grandfather's presidential campaign. Josh wrote,
"As part of the presidential family, Jeff and Annette's first house together
was the White House. [...] In some of Annette's favorite White House memories,
she greeted the cast of Star Wars after the release of A New Hope and
John Travolta after he starred in Saturday Night Fever and Grease."
When Jimmy Carter became president, his daughter Amy was only 9 years old. She was
the first child to live in the White House since the Kennedy presidency.
"I was young. It was fun."
Amy became an activist in the 1980s and 90s. She was even arrested in 1986
along with dozens of other Brown University students after a sit-in aimed at on-campus CIA
recruitment. When asked about her parents' thoughts on her being arrested, she said:
"[My father] encourages me to speak up for what
I believe is right. I think he probably wouldn't mind."
Amy illustrated a children's book written by her father, which they published in 1995, entitled
The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer. It was about a little boy named Jeremy making friends with
a sea monster. It was Jimmy's first kid's book, though not his first book. He's a published poet.
In 1996, Amy married James Wentzel at the Carter family estate in Georgia. They welcomed a son,
Hugo James Wentzel, in 1999. A year earlier, Amy became a board
member of the Carter Center but has otherwise maintained a low profile since the late '90s.
In a 2015 interview with CNN's Jake Tapper,
former president Jimmy Carter said his family has gotten pretty big, saying,
"We have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren,
38 of us in all. So we try to hold our family together and just enjoy the family life."
As of 2021, that number has grown to 43. Even with that many people in his family,
he still takes all of them on a massive family vacation during the winter holiday season. He told
Tapper that his wife Rosalynn and his family were "the foundation for my entire enjoyment of life."
When Jimmy and Rosalynn celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary with their loved ones in 2021,
their grandson Jason reflected on what 75 years together really means. He said,
"Let that sink in — 75 years. That number alone reflects so many blessings in their
life. They have had their health and their partnership for so long. It's a wonderful story."
The Carter family really is built to last.