Jimmy Carter is gearing up for an incredible milestone.
While the former President entered hospice care in February 2023, his grandson Jason Carter recently shared the 99-year-old—the longest-living President in U.S. history—is “doing okay” as he approaches his milestone 100th birthday Oct. 1.
“I mean he’s been in hospice for over 19 months now and he has really physically diminished and can’t do much on his own,” Jason told People Sept. 17, “but he is emotionally engaged and still having experiences and laughing, loving.”
Jason previously gave an update on his grandfather’s health in June, telling Southern Living there had “really been no change” in his condition since entering hospice in his native Plains, GA, in February 2023. However, he did describe the impact of the loss of former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who passed away last November at age 96, noting that his grandfather was “experiencing the world as best he can as he continues through this process.”
“After 77 years of marriage… I just think none of us really understand what it’s like for him right now,” Jason continued. “We have to embrace that fact, that there’s things about the spirit that you just can’t understand.”
Despite the fact that he wasn’t awake every day, the 39th President was still receiving frequent visits from family members including children John William "Jack" Carter, James Earl "Chip" Carter III, Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter and Amy Carter.
Jason—the eldest of 22 grandchildren—also described his own “sweet” exchange with his grandfather during a visit earlier this year.
“I told him, I said: ‘Pawpaw, you know, when people ask me how you’re doing I say, ‘honestly I don’t know,’” Jason shared. “And he kind of smiled and he said ‘I don’t know, myself.’”
Keep reading for a look at Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s incredible life of public service.
A photo from Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's earliest days together as a young naval officer and his bride stands out at the Plains High School Jimmy Carter National Historical Park in their Georgia hometown.
The Carters could share a private moment anywhere, even in front of thousands of people at the Democratic National Convention in 1976.
Along with his mother, Jimmy and Rosalynn were joined at the DNC here by daughter Amy Lynn Carter, their eldest son, John William "Jack" Carter, and third son Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter with his wife Annette Davis.
The couple, watching the returns with family in Atlanta, embraced on Election Night in 1976 upon finding out that Carter was going to be the 39th president of the United States.
The president and first lady put their best feet forward at a series of inaugural balls following Jimmy's swearing-in on Jan. 20, 1977. Rosalynn raised some eyebrows by recycling the same Mary Matise for Jimmae gown she wore to her husband's 1971 gubernatorial inauguration balls, but she had her husband's full support, Jimmy writing in A Full Life that he was "very proud of her beauty and grace."
Daughter Amy Lynn Carter was 9 when she and her Siamese cat Misty Malarky Ying Yang and dog Grits moved into the White House in January 1977.
Jimmy was the first sitting president since Theodore Roosevelt (and no president has done it since) to send his child to public school, enrolling Amy at Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in Washington, D.C.
But if there had been an Internet, this would have been a meme: During his one debate with Republican challenger Ronald Reagan in October 1980, President Carter invoked his then-13-year-old when he said, "I had a discussion the other day with my daughter Amy before I came here to ask me what the important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry and the control of nuclear arms."
Let's just say, the other side had a little fun with that, with Reagan supporters in Milwaukee chanting "Amy! Amy!" two days later when the candidate delivered a speech. "I remember when Patti and Ron were tiny kids," the future 36th president quipped. "We used to talk about nuclear power."
"Ask Amy" bumper stickers became a quick moneymaker for Republican groups, and she even made The Tonight Show, host Johnny Carson joking, "This will be a significant monologue because I asked Amy Carter what she thought were the most important issues to make jokes about."
The Carters may have had a young daughter but they also had three daughters-in-law by the time Jimmy became president, and most of the family moved to Washington.
Jack and wife Juliette "Judy" Langford stayed in Georgia, where they had welcomed son Jason James Carter on Aug. 7, 1975, and where daughter Sarah Rosemary would be born Dec. 19, 1978. (After their divorce, Jack married mother of two Elizabeth Brasfield on May 15, 1992.)
The Carters' second son, James Earl "Chip" Carter III, worked for the Democratic National Committee in Washington while his dad was in office and moved into the White House with wife Caron Griffin, who was eight months pregnant on Inauguration Day. Still, she strolled along the parade route with the rest of the family for a few blocks when the president and first lady made the unprecedented move to walk the whole mile and a half from the Capitol to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
"People along the parade route, when they saw that we were walking, began to cheer and weep," Jimmy later wrote, "and it was an emotional experience for us as well."
Chip and Caron's son, James Earl Carter IV, was born Feb. 25, 1977. That August it was announced that Chip was returning to Plains but his wife and child would be staying with the first family, and he and Caron confirmed their separation in 1978. Chip later married Ginger Hodges, with whom he welcomed daughter Margaret Alicia Carter on Sept. 23, 1987.
Chip's been married to third wife Becky Payne since 2001.
The Carters' third son, Jeff, married his college sweetheart Annette Davis on April 6, 1975, and they moved into the White House, too, while he was attending George Washington University.
Jeff and Annette eventually had three sons, Joshua Jeffrey (b. 1984), Jeremy Davis (1987-2015) and James Carlton (b. 1991), and were together until her death on Sept. 19, 2021.
Rosalynn was her husband's number-one confidante when he was president—and forever after.
"It's a full partnership," Carter told the AP in 2021 of his then-75-year marriage.
Jimmy and Rosalyn remain in sync at the White House in January 1979.
Amy, here with her dad in 1995, is mom to son Hugo, born in 1999, with first husband James Gregory Wentzel, and son Errol Carter Kelly with her spouse since 2007, John Joseph "Jay" Kelly.
The house Jimmy and Rosalynn built in 1961 and have lived in ever since remained the gathering spot for the whole family.
The Carters are also great-grandparents to Jason's sons, Henry and Thomas, with his wife Kate; Sarah's daughter, Josephine, with husband Brendan Keith Murphy; Margaret's daughter, Alicia, with husband Harold Edward Carter; Joshua's sons, Charles and Jonathan, with wife Sarah; and James' daughter, Rayna Rose, with wife Anna.
It's no wonder they earned the nickname "first lovebirds."
Jimmy knew a thing or two about keeping the peace.
"Every day there needs to be reconciliation and communication between the two spouses," the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize told the AP. "We don't go to sleep with some remaining differences between us."
"Jimmy and I are always looking for things to do together," Rosalynn said, but "each [spouse] should have some space. That's really important."
"It's hard to live until you're 95 years old," Carter told People in 2019. "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."
"One of the things Jesus taught was: If you have any talents, try to utilize them for the benefit of others," Jimmy told People in 2019, discussing the nearly four decades he and his wife had spent volunteering and advocating for Habitat for Humanity. "That's what Rosa and I have both tried to do."
Though their physical involvement in construction grew more limited with time, the Carters became synonymous with the organization, which builds affordable housing and offers no-interest mortgages to buyers who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford a home.
"I think both mine and Rosa's minds are almost as good as they used to be, we just have limited capability on stamina and strength," Jimmy said. "But we still try to stay busy and do a good job at what we do."
They got so adept at wielding tools over the years, they knocked down their own bedroom wall during a later-in-life home renovation in Plains.
"By that time," Rosalynn told the Washington Post in 2018, "we had worked with Habitat so much that it was just second-nature."
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