When it is his week to watch over his father, Chip Carter usually arrives at the house around 5:30 a.m.
At 99 years old, former President Jimmy Carter is an early riser and likes to talk politics, the presidential race and the Atlanta Braves in the morning. His extraordinary life has largely settled into a quiet regimen.
One of six full-time caregivers will make breakfast for the one-time leader of the free world. Chip will turn on the television and sit next to him as he eats.
“I have been doing this for years now,” said James Earl “Chip” Carter III, a 74-year-old grandfather. “I am pretty used to the routine of it. He’s my dad.”
Credit: AJC Archive at GSU Library
Credit: AJC Archive at GSU Library
Nineteen months after entering home hospice care, Jimmy Carter is marking a milestone that few Americans ever do.
Today, he’ll celebrate his 100th birthday. He’s lived longer than any other former president. Next on the list is George H.W. Bush, who died six years ago at the age of 94.
More than 20 members of Carter’s extended family are expected to make it to his hometown of Plains for a special birthday lunch.
Celebrations and events honoring Carter have been held all over the state, including a star-studded concert at the Fox Theatre, a 100-mile community bicycle ride in his home county and a free film festival in Atlanta organized by the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
Today, on his actual birthday, Plains will dedicate a monument called the Charters of Freedom — a permanent display of replicas of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence — at the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park.
Naturalization ceremonies, each welcoming 100 new Americans, will be held in the small Sumter County town and at the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta. And, depending on the weather, a United States Navy jet flyover is scheduled to be held in Plains to honor the 1946 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.
The day will round out with an evening concert, appropriately called “Happy Birthday, Mr. President! … Celebrating 100 years of Jimmy Carter in Plains,” featuring pianist David Osborne and singer-songwriters Cindy Morgan and Andrew Greer.
“We are thrilled,” said Jill Stuckey, superintendent of the National Park Service’s Jimmy Carter National Historic Site. “We never thought that this day would come. After he went into hospice, we thought it would be a matter of days, but it has been a matter of years. We couldn’t be happier.”
President Carter is not expected to attend any of the public events.
Constant care
Over the past 19 months, the Carters have set up a rotation of family members to be with him.
In addition to the professional caregivers, Chip, along with his wife, Becky, and his sister, Amy, each spend alternating one-week stints looking after President Carter.
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
Last November, Carter’s wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died at age 96.
Chip said that, while his father is still mourning the loss of Rosalynn, his spirits are high, buoyed by the excitement of the upcoming presidential election. But some days, according to Chip and Becky, are better than others.
“He sleeps a lot. When he is awake, sometimes he is conversant and sometimes he is not,” Becky Carter said. “Sometimes, he will be in a good mood and wake up with an amazing smile and those blue eyes. Then sometimes, as Chip says, he has those ‘report card’ eyes.”
The former president — who gets around in a wheelchair, aided by caregivers who work around the clock — sometimes gets frustrated when people don’t understand him, she said.
“But other times, he is crystal clear,” she added.
When immediate family members are in Plains, they sometimes stay at the family’s Pond House, where Jimmy Carter’s mother, Lillian Carter, lived from 1968 until she died in 1983.
It is about 2 miles down the road from the main house that he and Rosalynn moved into in 1961.
Chip said mornings with his father usually begin with baseball, which was a more urgent proposition as the Braves fought for a playoff spot.
President Carter usually goes to bed around 7:30 p.m., often about the time of the Braves’ first pitch. So, Chip records all the games and the two of them begin to watch them in the morning.
“It might take all day to watch a game,” Chip Carter said.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Intermittently, they will watch the news or old black-and-white movies, or sometimes “Matlock” and “Perry Mason” on MeTV.
Chip says family members usually control the remote to try to monitor the news that his father sees. The content is long on national and local politics and short on international conflict, like the Israel-Gaza war. They don’t want to upset the man who brokered the Camp David Accords, the historic 1978 peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.
“He really feels bad about what is going on over there,” Chip said. “He still feels that he can help.”
In their talks, Chip might bring up the Carter family farm, which he now runs. He recently planted close to 1,500 acres of longleaf pines, much to his father’s delight.
At about 10 a.m., Chip usually heads into town to run errands and call on family friends and associates.
He always visits his mother’s grave to place fresh flowers.
On Aug. 18, his mother’s birthday, Chip took his father to the grave site, located at the edge of a pond in front of their home.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Chip worried about the short jaunt because of his father’s fragile health.
At the grave that day, Chip remembers, his father ordered him to be quiet. The elder Carter then sat in silence for about 20 minutes, maybe praying, Chip surmised.
“But he could have been having a conversation with mom,” Chip thought, before wheeling his father back to the house.
The size of the heart
Becky Carter’s turn in the rotation rolled around last week. Retired from the Carter Center, where she worked in fundraising, she has been married to Chip for 23 years.
She began relieving Chip and Amy and sitting with her father-in-law because she could see the toll it was taking on the siblings. She wanted to absorb some of their stress.
“That is what families do, and they haven’t run me off yet,” Becky said. “It is an honor.”
For Becky, the pressure comes when she’s trying to find something to talk to Carter about.
“I have never felt like I was smart enough to have a reasonable conversation with him,” she said. “So I am always hesitant to have a conversation with him. That is part of the stress. But I also want to make sure that he is as comfortable as he can be.”
Last Wednesday, as Hurricane Helene made its way to Georgia, Becky took her seat next to her father-in-law and read to him.
As the rain fell, she read from a book she had gotten from the library about hummingbirds.
“It was about the heartbeat of hummingbirds and the size of their hearts — how their hearts can beat so many times in the blink of an eye,” Becky said. “It was about all of the love that people and animals feel with their hearts. He liked it.”
Breakfast for dinner
About once a week, the National Park Service’s Stuckey makes the drive to what is known as the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Home.
All of Carter’s life, chickens have been raised there. Stuckey carefully picks about a dozen or so eggs.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
She takes them home to her roommate, Andi Walker.
Walker used to live behind the Carters and has been cooking for them in some form or fashion for more than 20 years.
Walker will scramble the eggs and add a side of grits and sausage or bacon. She will fix up a plate and give it to Stuckey to deliver.
“The president likes breakfast for dinner,” said Stuckey, one of Carter’s regular visitors.
Chip Carter usually makes a point of sitting with his father during dinner time, which might end with mini cupcakes for dessert.
The two of them will talk and watch more television. Sometimes, they watch more of the previous night’s Braves game, until the former president falls asleep.
One last vote
In August, they watched most of the Democratic National Convention. The former president has become a huge supporter of Kamala Harris.
Credit: Rick Diamond / The Carter Center
Credit: Rick Diamond / The Carter Center
His birthday comes 36 days before the presidential election.
He’s told Chip that he wants to be around long enough to vote for Harris to become the first female president of the United States.
“He does not believe Donald Trump should be president again,” Chip Carter said.
It would be the 20th time Jimmy Carter has voted in a presidential election. His first vote came in 1948 for Democrat Harry S. Truman, who defeated Thomas E. Dewey.
During Carter’s tenure as president, he placed in the Oval Office a bust of Truman. According to Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander, Truman was his favorite president.
Stuart E. Eizenstat, who wrote “President Carter: The White House Years,” said Plains’ favorite son also kept Truman’s motto, “The buck stops here,” on his desk.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
“He admired Truman’s no-frills style and his willingness to make tough decisions, regardless of the political consequences, like integrating the military,” said Eizenstat, who worked as Carter’s chief White House domestic policy adviser. “Ironically, both left office highly unpopular and shunned by their party, but remained loyal to it. And each came to be recognized as consequential presidents who made the world a better place.”
In his post-presidency life, Carter worked to strengthen democracy throughout the world. Since 1989, the Carter Center has deployed election observers to 40 countries and three Native American nations to monitor and assess the legitimacy of the electoral process.
Credit: DEBORAH HAKES
Credit: DEBORAH HAKES
Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, said the nation’s 39th president cast a mail-in ballot during the May 21 Georgia presidential primary. Absentee ballots for the Nov. 5 general election go out in mid-October.
“His vote is personal, and it is his final civic duty,” Chip Carter said. “Then, I think, he’s ready to be with mom.”
About the Author
