On December 29, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter passed away. At 100 years old, he was our nation’s oldest living President on record.
And while his centenarian status is certainly admirable, his policies to protect older Americans, his mission to better humanity, and his ongoing commitment to community service at 56 following the end of his Presidency is the legacy we at the Alliance for Aging Research are grateful for today.
In this recent ABC-7 News, Washington, D.C. piece on the 39th president’s commitment to the aged, Carter’s appointee to the Federal Council on Aging Fernando Torres-Gil says that improving the lives of older Americans was something Carter truly believed in. “He said old age not as one segment of life, but as a continuation of life,” Torres-Gil said of his time working with Carter in the late 1970s.
Dan Perry, retired Director and Founder of the Alliance for Aging Research in 1986, shared a few thoughts on Carter:
“Jimmy Carter was just 56 years old when he lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan. He had attained exactly the number of years of life predicted for males in the year he was born. What more could he expect? He had been shut out of the job he loved, a job with enormous power and influence to do good in the world,” Perry said. “An ambitious man he rose from a childhood of semi-rural poverty to attain that exalted position. And now he was being sent back to Plains, Ga., against his will. One might imagine his sense of despair and failure. His farm and warehouse businesses were in debt from his absence. His marriage to Rosalynn would be tested. He couldn’t avoid personal guilt brought on by the crushing weight of rejection by the people he yearned to serve.”
Millions of people facing what they believe is a diminishment of their career and declining years ahead might identify with Carter’s state of mind at that point. However, the Carters personal rebound after the loss of the presidency should serve as a model of resilience and opportunity in the so-called retirement years. As we now know, President Carter was just getting started.
In his 1998 New York Times bestselling memoir, The Virtues of Aging, written at age 74, he details how he and Rosalynn devoted themselves to staying healthy and active, adopting new diets and physical regimens as well as redirecting their energies to a multitude of efforts to help others both locally and globally. Two years after leaving Washington they founded the Carter Center. They dedicated the organization’s efforts to resolve conflict, foster democracy and development, fight hunger, disease and human rights abuses in Asia, Central and South America, and in the U.S. Living with dignity was the cornerstone of the couple’s moral compass. Together, for more than 40 years, they dedicated personal time and work to address the lack of affordable housing for low-income Americans through Habitat for Humanity.
Carter is known for another notable number than his age — he’s written the most books of any modern U.S. president: 32. (And apparently, he’s had the fewest books written about him.)
His grandson, who will deliver his eulogy this week, told CNN about how he applied his values and his genuine concern for other people and to improving the human experience. He said, “…the thing he taught me about politics that sometimes gets lost is you can be a person like him who doesn’t change, who stays who they are and stays true to their principles and their beliefs despite all of the temptations of politics. And it’s just good to know that that person can exist in this world.”
As we pause today in Washington, D.C. and around the nation as Carter lies in state at the U.S. Capitol before his funeral at the National Cathedral, we reflect on a life well-lived and are thankful for his leadership and humanitarian efforts. President Carter is an example that life is often just beginning in what many perceive as our later years, and can be prime time to make meaningful contributions to our world.
Katie Riley serves as the Alliance’s Vice President of Communications. Alliance Digital Communications Manager Matthew Thompson contributed to this post.