PLAINS, Ga. — Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has died at the age of 96.
The Carter Center announced that she suffered from dementia and died Sunday after months of declining health.
She “passed away peacefully surrounded by her family” at her home in the rural south Georgia town of Plains at 2:10 p.m., the statement said. The schedule for her memorial service and funeral arrangements will be announced at a later date.
Landmarks and notable events in the life of former United States First Lady Rosalynn Carter:
— August 18, 1927: Eleanor Rosalyn Smith is born at her parents’ home in Plains, Georgia. She is the daughter of Wilburn Edgar Smith, a mechanic, and Allie Murray Smith, a seamstress and postal worker.
— Late August 1927: “Miss Lillian” Carter, the nurse and neighbor who gave birth to Rosalyn, takes her almost three-year-old son, Jimmy, to see her new baby.
— 1940: Rosalyn’s father dies, leaving her to help her mother raise her younger siblings.
— 1945: She begins dating Jimmy Carter, now a midshipman at the Naval Academy and the younger brother of her best friend Ruth Carter.
— Spring 1946: She graduates from Georgia Southwestern University.
— July 7, 1946: She marries Jimmy at her childhood congregation, Plains Methodist Church. they have four children. John William (“Jack”), born 1947. James Earle III (“Chip”), 1950. Donnell Jeffrey, 1952. and Amy Lin, 1967.
— 1946-1953: Rosalyn manages the Carter family and Jimmy works on the Navy’s nuclear submarine program, achieving the rank of lieutenant commander.
— 1955: She begins helping Jimmy in the farm’s warehouse. “She knew more about this business than he did on paper,” she quickly recalled ahead of her 75th anniversary.
— 1962: She helps Jimmy campaign for state senator, which Jimmy ends up winning in an election that is settled in court.
— 1966: Jimmy runs for governor of Georgia for the first time, and Rosalyn campaigns alone for the first time, but loses. But their model of separate campaigning would prove key to their victory four years later and to the 1976 presidential election.
— 1975-1976: She led the “Peanut Brigade” of Carter family family, friends, and supporters in Georgia, expanding into Iowa and other key candidate states to increase the campaign’s person-to-person reach. Expanded. The same model they used in Georgia revolutionized presidential campaigns with Rosalyn as Jimmy’s top surrogate.
— January 20, 1977: The newly sworn-in 39th president, Rosalyn, and her family drew special attention on Inauguration Day by walking down Pennsylvania Avenue instead of riding in an armored limousine. The Carters enrolled their daughter, Amy, in a predominantly black public school in Washington, D.C. In Atlanta, Amy attended a private school when Carter was governor.
— Summer 1977: Rosalyn goes on a 13-day diplomatic trip to seven Latin American countries and Caribbean islands. She also urged Jimmy to delay her action on the treaty granting her control of the Panama Canal, arguing that it would be politically too expensive for her first term. He proceeds to conclude the treaty.
— September 1978: Rosalyn was with Jimmy at Camp David for most of the intense negotiations with Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. She listens to and advises the president every day before the three leaders reach the Camp David Accords. Both Mr. Begin and Mr. Sadat are fond of the first lady, and Mr. Sadat is particularly close to the Carters.
— November 1979: Rosalyn leads a delegation to refugee camps in Cambodia, drawing international media attention to the humanitarian crisis.She persuades the president to admit more refugees into the United States
— Summer and fall of 1980: She campaigned on Jimmy’s behalf nearly every day while he was in the White House working to win the release of hostages in Iran.
— 1980: She helped win Congressional approval of the Mental Health Systems Act, which directed more federal funding to regional centers for mental health treatment. Republican Ronald Reagan would later change course as president.
— November 1980: Jimmy Carter is denied re-election to a second term by Reagan, who receives 51.6 percent of the popular vote, Carter with 41.7 percent and independent John Anderson with 6.7 percent.
— 1982: The Carters co-found the Carter Center in Atlanta, with a mission to resolve conflict, protect human rights, defend democracy, and prevent disease around the world.
— 1984: Rosalyn publishes her memoir “First Lady of the Plains,” in which she confesses how much she missed Washington. This is her first of her five books.
— September 1984: She travels to New York City, where the Carters volunteer to build a home for Habitat for Humanity. This becomes their annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter work project.
— 1987: She founded the Rosalynn Carter Caregivers Association at her college alma mater to advocate for Americans who are unpaid caregivers.
— Summer 1989: Rosalynn travels with Jimmy on a week-long African tour that includes an international conference on Guinea worm eradication, perhaps the Carter Center’s most ambitious public health initiative.
— 1996: She establishes the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism, based at the Carter Center, to help working journalists better report on the subject.
— 1999: She is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.
— July 10, 2007: She testifies before a U.S. House subcommittee, urging Congress to require health insurance to cover mental health treatment the same as treatment for other illnesses.
— November 2016: She hosts the 32nd annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy.
— October 2019: In Nashville, the Carters participate in person for the last time with the Habitat for Humanity project. The program continues.
— April 30, 2021: The Carters host President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at their Plains home. The couple have been friends since the 1976 campaign, when Biden, then a young congressman from Delaware, became the first U.S. senator to endorse Carter as a presidential candidate.
— July 7, 2021: The Carter family celebrates 75 years of marriage. As for her advice for a successful marriage, she says: That’s really important. ”
— February 18, 2023: The Carter family announces that Jimmy will be placed in home hospice care. They later said they thought he would only live a few days, but bounced back to celebrate his 77th wedding anniversary and his 99th birthday later this year.
— May 30, 2023: Family announces Rosalyn has dementia.
— September 23, 2023: The Carters make a surprise appearance at the Plains Peanut Festival parade in a Secret Service vehicle with the windows rolled down, marking their last public appearance.
— May 17, 2023: The Carter family announces she has been placed in home hospice care.
— November 19, 2023 Rosalynn Carter died in the same Plains home where the Carters lived when Jimmy was elected to the state Senate in 1962.