(WASHINGTON) — The life of former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 96, will be celebrated next week with memorial events and a funeral service in her home state of Georgia.
The public will be able to pay their respects when the family motorcade carries her remains to Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, her alma mater, on Monday, Nov. 27, The Carter Center shared in a schedule of events. Past and present members of Carter’s Secret Service detail will accompany the motorcade.
Wreaths will be laid at the university before the motorcade continues to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, where the former first lady will lie in repose for several hours.
On Tuesday, Nov. 28, there will be a tribute service for Carter at Glenn Memorial Church at Emory University in Atlanta.
Her funeral service will be held the following day, Wednesday, Nov. 29, at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. Former President Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school at the church for decades and into his 90s.
“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Jimmy Carter said in a statement on Sunday announcing her death. “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.”
Married to Jimmy Carter for more than 77 years — the longest union of any presidential couple in U.S. history — Rosalynn Carter was a pillar of support through his time in the Navy, the governorship and the White House.
But she built a legacy of her own as a mental health advocate and through her humanitarian work, including with The Carter Center, which she and her husband founded after leaving the White House.
The Carter Center praised her as “a passionate champion of mental health, caregiving, and women’s rights.”
Already, tributes have poured in for the former first lady in an online condolence book set up by The Carter Center for the public.
One individual shared that since becoming a caregiver for their mother they were “moved by the First Lady’s own life supporting caregivers from a very early age, in her own family of origin, and then the families she supported through the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers.”
Another wrote that they, as the son of a mother with mental illness, were “forever grateful” for her work destigmatizing mental illness.
Rosalynn Carter is survived by her husband, their four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
