Rosalynn Carter, wife of former American President Jimmy Carter, has died at the age of 96. For several days she has been receiving palliative treatment at home in Georgia (which also includes her husband, who stopped medical treatment in February due to the deterioration of his condition).
She is considered one of the most politically active first ladies in the United States since Eleanor Roosevelt. At the end of May he said he was suffering from senile dementia. The couple married in 1946. But in his autobiography (“A Full Life, Reflections at Ninety”), the former president told an anecdote: It was his mother, a nurse, who gave birth to his partner a few days later. She took him with her to to visit the newborn. Eighteen years later the two would meet again and never part again.
Both Christians came to the hallways of the White House from rural Georgia. Her handwritten notes supplement many of her husband’s speeches preserved in the archives. When Carter failed to win re-election against Ronald Reagan, he and his wife did not give up their public engagement. They have traveled around the world supporting projects defending human rights and democracy. During her term as president, Rosalynn instead chose to make the issue of mental health more visible. And at that point, Congress officially recognized the First Lady’s role and provided her with funds and a staff.
– The kiss with her husband after a press conference in 2002 (Afp)
His advocacy led to legislation (later withdrawn by the Reagan administration): the Mental Health Systems Act, which aimed to fund mental health centers. While another of her struggles – covering mental health through health insurance – only became a reality in 2008. “I was more of a political partner than a politician’s wife,” she recalled in her 1984 memoir.