Rosalynn

COMMENTARY

[ dripping with sarcasm] “ Of course, Jimmy, I want you to forget the fact that you graduated in the top percentile of the United States Naval Academy and are well on your way to an illustrious naval career so that we can go home and farm. By all means, let’s give up the chance to travel the world because you feel an obligation to your mother. Sure thing, Plains is the place I want to land again, with great memories of working my teenage years to help support my family after my own dad died. Yep, honey, we will pack our kids and our dreams even though you have been handpicked to help with the Navy’s cutting-edge nuclear submarine program. Of course, Jimmy, whatever you say,” said Rosalynn Carter in 1953.

No, Rosalynn did not put it exactly like that.

But she did express her disappointment in her husband’s decision to return to Plains to manage the Carter family farm interests upon the death of his father. And I won’t even try to recreate the conversations they must have had during the drought Georgia experienced the first year they were home. Records show that the Carter Farm recorded only a net profit of $187 in 1954.

Rosalynn Smith Carter, who died last week at the age of 96, was a quiet force. It impresses me that this 1950s housewife felt secure in her marriage and in her own identity that she could voice her frustrations about her husband’s career choice. She was not happy and said so. She also was devoted to this man, and her actions along those lines spoke even louder. This former first lady was a member of one of American history’s most effective, inspiring and loving partnerships.

It was never about her. It was never about them.

It was about what the two of them could do as equals, sometimes in political arenas but more often than not in humanitarian ones. For the Carters, politics was a means to an end—not for power and money but for bringing about positive and necessary changes that would promote democracy at home and abroad.

A part of me wishes the former president had taken his final breath alongside Rosalynn. An historic state funeral—and one that would be well deserved—would see them collaborate one more time on their final journey.

[ whispered lovingly] “Jimmy, let’s go Home. Together.”

Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.