Tribute service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy Carter, 99, is attending the tribute service for his wife, Rosalynn, but the former president isn't able to speak — so their daughter, Amy Lynn Carter, read one of his love letters on his behalf.

"This is from a letter he wrote 75 years ago while he was serving in the Navy," Amy said before reading this passage:

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus followed the reading with a performance of "Wondrous Love."

Former president Jimmy Carter is seated in the first row with his sons, John William “Jack” Carter, James Earl “Chip” Carter III and Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff” Carter and his daughter, Amy Lynn Carter, during the tribute service for his wife.

Amy was seen holding her father's hand during a performance of "Morning Has Broken" by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus.

The service honoring former first lady Rosalynn Carter is being held at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church.   

President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton joined the family in the first row along with former first ladies Melania Trump, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

So close were Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, that it is jarring to see him without her.

The former president’s deeply poignant arrival in church a reclined wheelchair, just before his wife’s flower-covered casket, ends their common journey in life that lasted nearly 80 years.

They first met in the last summer of World War II. Carter, then a US Naval Academy student, told his mother after his first date with Eleanor Rosalynn Smith that, "she's the girl I want to marry."  

The couple, who decades later would become the longest-betrothed presidential couple in history, wed in 1946.

When he published his book “A Full Life” shortly before he was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, Carter contemplated his own mortality. He wrote that he was at peace with his accomplishments as president as well as his unrealized goals. He said he and Rosalynn were “blessed with good health and look to the future with eagerness and confidence, but are prepared for inevitable adversity when it comes." 

Even the Carters couldn’t beat time and that adversity eventually came. And Carter, 99, who is himself receiving hospice care, will be left to face his final days without his partner in life and politics.

Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter’s son, James Earl “Chip” Carter III, welcomed the crowd who gathered at a church in Atlanta to honor the life of his mother by talking about how much she influenced him and his life.

He said Rosalynn was the “glue that held our family together through the ups and downs and thicks and thins of our family’s politics.”

He said she believed in her children and took care of them and credited his mother for getting him into rehab for his drug and alcohol addiction.

“She saved my life,” he said.

Carter III also talked about the impact Rosalynn had not only on the family but on Americans across the nation.

“She told me that when dad started running for president, that the thing that she enjoyed the most was the people that she met across the country,” he said, adding that when she was first lady, she tried to operate with her faith at the forefront.

A tribute service honoring former first lady Rosalynn Carter has started at a church in Atlanta.

She lay in repose Monday evening at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta. On Tuesday morning before coming to the church, a departure ceremony took place at the Carter Presidential Center.

On the way to Atlanta on Monday, the former first lady’s motorcade made a few brief stops, including at her alma mater, Georgia Southwestern State University, where officials laid wreaths at a bronze statue dedicated to her.

Former President Jimmy Carter has arrived at the tribute service of his wife, Rosalynn Carter.

People have gathered at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church at Emory University in Atlanta for the observation. President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are also in attendance. They are seated in the front row of the church.

Jimmy Carter, who is 99 and receiving hospice care at home, had been expected to attend the memorial. He is “very physically diminished” and plans to stay throughout but won’t deliver any remarks, his grandson Jason Carter said.

“But we all know that he wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he added.

The Carters were married for more than 77 years.

Former President Jimmy Carter’s brief return to the spotlight Tuesday for his wife's tribute service comes at a moment when the bedrock of his international legacy is standing solid in a time of crisis.

Carter was the architect of the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt – the first peace deal between the Jewish state and one of its Arab enemies. 

The Carters had long been deeply interested in the Middle East even before the presidency. In his book “The Blood of Abraham," the former president wrote how he and Rosalynn became drawn to the region through Bible study and pored over maps and history books before inspecting Christian holy sites in a Mercedes station wagon during a visit to Israeli Prime Minster Golda Meir in 1973 when he was the governor of Georgia.

The Camp David agreement, signed by Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978, called for a formal peace between the foes and the establishment of diplomatic relations. It resulted in the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula and called for an Israeli exit from the West Bank and Gaza. 

The agreement has often been referenced since the eruption of the war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. That’s because it emerged in a window for peace following another conflict – the Yom Kippur War of 1973 between Israel and Egypt and Syria. The hope now is that once the fighting ends in Gaza, a similar moment may exist for forging a final status peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Such dreams may be elusive. But the Middle East would be far worse off now as another war rages but for Carter’s work nearly 50 years ago.

Former presidents and first ladies occasionally hitch a ride on Air Force One for some national and international events, as the Clintons and former first lady Michelle Obama did on Tuesday.

The group is attending a memorial service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter on Tuesday in Atlanta.

Former President George W. Bush, his wife Laura and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also a former first lady, accompanied then-President Barack Obama on the flight to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral in 2013, for example.

Former President Jimmy Carter himself was one of four presidents aboard the presidential jet headed to the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan in 1999. He was the guest of then-sitting President Bill Clinton and ex-presidents George Bush and Gerald Ford were also on board.

In 2016, Bill Clinton seemed to forget for one moment that he wasn’t the big guy anymore when the then-commander-in-chief appeared at the door of his plane and hollered to his Democratic predecessor to get on board at the Tel Aviv Airport after the funeral of former Israeli Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres 

“Bill! Let’s go. Let’s go home,” Obama said, with a grin directed towards his fellow two-termer, who was notoriously late for everything.

A private tribute service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter will take place Tuesday at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church at the Emory University campus in Atlanta, Georiga.

The service will be exactly what she envisioned, her grandson Jason Carter told CNN, adding that she designed the program herself.

She died peacefully in her Plains home on November 19, at the age of 96, two days after the Carter Center announced she was entering hospice care at home. In May, the Carter Center said she had dementia.

Rosalynn Carter and her husband, former US President Jimmy Carter, returned home to Plains — located about 120 miles south of Atlanta — after leaving the White House in 1981 and had lived there since. Jimmy Carter, who is 99, began receiving home hospice care in February, after a series of hospital stays.

People from across the state — and across the country — have made their way to the area in the past week to celebrate Rosalynn Carter’s life and legacy as the town of several hundred prepared to say goodbye.

Who is expected to attend: Jason Carter previously told CNN his grandfather, Jimmy Carter, is planning on traveling to Atlanta for the memorial service.

Other invited guests include President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and the second gentleman.

Former President Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton along with former first ladies, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump are also expected to attend, according to a statement from the Carter Center. 

Artists Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are scheduled to perform at the service. Members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will play songs beloved by Rosalynn Carter. 

Members of the Carter family including Mrs. Carter’s son Chip and daughter Amy will take part in the service. The Carter’s personal pastor, Tony Lowden, will deliver opening remarks.