Remembering When Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Came To Town
Beloved First Lady Roslyn Carter was laid to rest today, at the front of the Carter family home in Plains Georgia. There were three days of ceremony for her, including her funeral service that her husband, Jimmy Carter attended. While the Carters were very much a part of Georgia they traveled and one day in the spring of 1988 their travels took them to Philadelphia.
The two were at 19th Street and W. Wilt which is in the heart of North Philadelphia. They were there to build houses for Habitat For Humanity. On the day they were there one would expect Secret Service checkpoints and snipers on top of rooftops. It was anything but that. It was a construction site.
Alex Lloyd Gross Photo-Delaware Valley News.com Rosalynn Carter in the Spring of 1988 in Philadelphia . She is building a house.
There were police but it was low key. They Carters were not supervising, they were building. Carter had on overalls and Rosalynn had on blue jeans and a blue top. They were getting aluminum siding ready to be installed on a house that a low income family would moved in to. Rosalynn and her husband were not doing this for the cameras, they were export crafts workers.
When lunch came, the Carter’s joined others under a yellow and white tent to get an award and shared in a presentation from then Mayor W. Wilson Good. It was then time for lunch. They stood in line and ate what everyone else ate, off of paper plates. They drank sodas from cans.
When lunch was over and some of the media packed up and went away, the Carters went back to work, Rosalynn Carter at times would work by herself and other times at Jimmy’s side, while they were in Philadelphia.
Rosalynn Carter died November 18, 2023 at 2:10 PM. She was surrounded by family when she passed. She is survived by her children — Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy — and 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.