TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/83/83capmil.3

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                                                                            >««The Spirited Matriarch from Plains

November 14, 1983

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 tow 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 Chemin 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."