A Mother's Day Tribute To Miss Lillian, The Mother Of A President

President Jimmy Carter in the White House with his mother, Lillian

These days, I don't have much appreciation for Jimmy Carter's politics. On the other hand, I hold his attitude toward  family and community, and especially his formative years under the parentage of Earl and Lillian Carter as near sacred.  Much of my appreciation is directed to his mother, an energetic, outspoken, compassionate, and dedicated woman who raised a son who suddenly found himself President of the United States. I know this story because I read thousands of pages about the Carter family, interviewed those who knew them, and worked with the site planning team and Rosalyn and Jimmy Carter  - face-to-face a few times -  to plan and design the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site and its operation and management. One of the great joys of the site is the  interpretation of  Plains, Georgia as a small rural Southern town.

If you think about the imagery in Harper Lee's Maycomb, Alabama - the fictional town in To Kill A Mockingbird - you have all the ingredients needed for a glimpse at Plains, Georgia and its inhabitants, great and small. It is in this setting that Lillian Carter married James Earl Carter in 1924, served her community as a nurse practitioner, raised four children. and served as a beacon for racial equality. Later in life, she was a long-time house mother for a fraternity at Auburn University, a Peace Corp volunteer in India, and a national campaigner for her son during his run for the presidency.

In her lifetime, Lillian Gordy Carter played roles deep and broad. And granted, the times do change. Still, her biography is a fine example that women in the U.S. need not settle for "either or" choices in life, but look forward to accepting all the challenges and opportunities that may present themselves. Finally, we should also recognize the millions of American mothers who as ordinary women in the everyday life of the last century  raised honorable men and women.  They -we - are the hope for the future of this or any country. For the most part, I think we can thank our moms for that.

To learn more about "Miss Lillian," go here.  Readers are also directed to the writings of Jimmy Carter, particularly, An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of A Rural Boyhood (2006), and A Remarkable Mother (2010).  Readers should not let politics separate them from Jimmy Carter and his role as an extraordinarily fine writer-storyteller.