TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/83/83capmil.3

Text File | 1992-09-25 | 4KB | 65 lines

                                                                                November 14, 1983

The Spirited Matriarch from Plains

Lillian Carter: 1898-1983


To her son, who grew up to be President, she bequeathed a toothy
grin, piercing blue eyes and, as she put it, a "feeling for the
underdog." To the rest of the nation, Lillian Carter--"Miss
Lillian," as she was universally known--passed on a refreshing
does of down-home sass and straightforward irreverence. "There
was really nothing outstanding about Jimmy as a boy," she once
said of her successful firstborn, contending that Daughter
Gloria, two years younger, was actually the smartest of her
brood. And in 1976 she admonished her candidate-son Jimmy to
"quit that stuff about never telling a lie."  Lillian Carter,
who died of cancer last week at 85, was never inhibited by her
role as First Mother. That strength and independence made her
one of the nation's best-loved matriarchs.

If Rose Kennedy produced a clan in which duty and leadership
were expected, Miss Lillian expected only, but urgently, that
her children be themselves. It had been her way. The fourth
of nine children, Bessie Lillian Gordy was born in the southwest
Georgia town of Richland, where her postmaster father taught her
racial tolerance early on. When the family moved to Plains,
Lillian became a nurse, and shocked some neighbors by treating
poor blacks as well as whites. She was, she acknowledged,
probably "the most liberal woman in the county, maybe the
state."  In 1923 she married James Earl Carter, owner of a local
farm-supply store, and set about raising four children.

When her husband died in 1953, not long after being elected to
the Georgia legislature, she was asked to succeed him. Too
depressed, she said no and later regretted it. But she forged
a mid-life revival, working as a fraternity housemother and the
manager of a nursing home. Then, at 68, she took literally the
claim of a TV ad that "age is no barrier" and joined the Peace
Corps. Her two years in India, tending to people afflicted with
everything from tuberculosis to leprosy, "meant more to me than
any other one thing in my life," she said.

Miss Lillian contributed to Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential
campaign, mainly by staying home in Plains and taking care of
Granddaughter Amy, whom she called "my heart."  But she also
found time for speeches and TV interviews, charming the public
with her ingenuous candor. That outspokenness continued after
Carter's election, though her off-the-cuff comments sometimes
could be embarrassing to the increasingly beleaguered President.
During the Iranian hostage crisis, she blurted that she would
like to have the Ayatollah Khomeini assassinated.

Miss Lillian, whose fancies included baseball, TV soap operas
and a nightly tot of bourbon, had no regrets when her son was
defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. "I never did like the White
House," she asserted. "It was boring."  According to those
close to her, Miss Lillian's spirits remained high even after
a 1981 mastectomy failed to halt the spread of cancer. But in
September, after the death of her daughter Evangelist Ruth
Carter Stapleton, "She sort of gave up," said a friend. Miss
Lillian's unpretentious graveside service in Plains -- attended
by some 300 mourners including such former Carter Administration
figures as Hamilton Jordan, Bert Lance and Atlanta Mayor Andrew
Young -- lasted less than four minutes. "Well, that's what she
wanted, short and simple," commented a neighbor leaving the
cemetery. "Yep," said another "And she usually got her way."