Love Stories: Jimmy Carter met his future wife when she was just 10 minutes old

Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has Jimmy Carter.

It comes more than a year after his wife Rosalynn Carter, the former First Lady of the United States, Rosalynn Carter.

Rosalynn and Jimmy quite literally spent a lifetime together, being introduced when she was only ten minutes old.

Watch the video above.

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In a 2021 interview with The Washington Post, the couple revealed that the hardest part of ageing was knowing "that one would leave the other behind."

In a statement released hours after his wife's death, Jimmy said, "Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished, 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."

The couple's love story began on a mid-August night in 1927.

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Lilian Carter helped deliver a baby girl in her hometown of Plains, Georgia. The baby girl, Eleanor Rosalynn Smith – or Rosalynn, for short – was the daughter of her close family friends, the Smiths.

Lilian soon after brought her three-year-old toddler, Jimmy, into the hospital to meet his new friend and unbeknownst to him, his future wife.

Whilst their families were acquainted, Jimmy and Rosalynn were not close friends throughout their childhood or teenage years. Rosalynn formed a closer friendship with Jimmy's younger sister Ruth, who was closer to the future First Lady in age.

In fact, at the time Rosalynn didn't give Jimmy much of a second glance at all – that was until she saw a picture of him in his Navy uniform after he joined the United States Naval Academy.

"I spent a lotta time at that house, but he was always off at school," Rosalynn Carter told ABC News.

"He was so good to Ruth. He would write her letters, and she talked about him all the time. And she had his photograph on the wall in her bedroom. And I literally did fall in love with that photograph."

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While on a short stint back in his hometown from the naval base, Jimmy ran into Rosalynn and on a whim asked her on a date. Just like many of us, the pair spent their first date at the movies. When Jimmy returned home, he adamantly told his mother that he had just gone out with the woman he was going to marry.

The young couple began to date but due to Jimmy's training at the United States Naval Academy, they spent much of their early days together long-distance. 

However, Jimmy never let distance get in the way of his blossoming love, the youngster coined an acronym just for Rosalynn "ILYTG" – "I love you the goodest" – as a way to express his affections from afar.

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When Jimmy finally worked up the courage to ask Rosalynn to marry him – to his absolute bewilderment she said 'no'. 

Rosalynn had promised her father on his deathbed that she would graduate from college first and told Jimmy she had to keep her promise and not be distracted.

"But he was persistent," she said.

The couple eventually exchanged vows on July 7, 1946, in their hometown of Plains.

Jimmy and Rosalyn moved around the country to wherever Jimmy's naval career would take him. However, once the war began to wind down, the pair returned to Georgia to grow the Carter family's peanut farming business.

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However, being back in the south, Jimmy and Rosalynn had come face-to-face with the abhorrent racism that was rife in Georgia and other neighbouring states. In his hometown of Plains, Jimmy became the only white man to refuse to join the White Citizens Council, which worked to promote segregation.

In retaliation, the local townspeople attempted to boycott the Carters' peanut farm but this failed tremendously. Meanwhile, Jimmy continued to throw himself into community projects and by 1962 he had thrown his hat into the ring to represent the Democrats in the Georgia senate. Though he was initially beat out, Jimmy was able to prove his opponent had committed voter fraud thus making way for his eventual climb to presidency.

Along his journey to presidency, Rosalynn was the hidden figure developing strategies as well as showing her husband public-facing support.

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Jimmy Carter served as President of the United States from January 1977 to January 1981. After this, he and Rosalynn moved back to Plains and threw themselves into humanitarian work including building houses for Habitat.

According to Habitat, every year since 1984, former US president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter donated one week of his time – and his building skills – to Habitat.

Speaking with The Washington Post just days before their 75th wedding anniversary, the couple explained that they had made peace with the inevitable truth that one would pass before the other.

"We're going to be buried right there, on that little hill," Jimmy said, pointing to a hill beside the pond in their hometown.

The couple had always planned to be buried there, the same place where they met, grew up, had their first date, married and started their political journey.

In February, 2023, Jimmy entered hospice care at home after struggling with multiple health issues, including melanoma that had spread to his brain and liver.

Rosalynn soon followed in November of 2023, just six months after being diagnosed with dementia.

On the morning of November 20, 2023, the couple's foundation The Carter Centre announced that Rosalynn passed peacefully at home.

The Carter Centre then confirmed on December 30, 2024, that Jimmy had died aged 100 peacefully, surrounded by his family.

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