Jimmy Carter, No. 39
October 1 & 2, 2022
Plains, GA
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| Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter |
The town, population 758 and home to the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, plays up that history and connection. The historical park is made up of several sites important in Carter’s life — all with free admission: His boyhood farm, his current home, his school, the railroad depot — home to his 1976 campaign — and brother Billy’s gas station. The one-block “business district” boasts a giant sign on the building that says “Plains, Georgia. Home of Jimmy Carter. Our 39th president.”
As Carter was famously known as a peanut farmer, wooden cutout peanuts dot the downtown — as did “Happy 98th Birthday” yard signs on the day we visited: Oct. 1, the birthday of America’s oldest living president.
Carter didn’t actually grow up in Plains. No, his family’s farm was 2.5 miles away in the now-defunct community of Archery. And that is where we headed after we landed at the Atlanta airport.
A 2 1/2 -hour drive later, we arrived at the farm in mid- to late afternoon. Hurricane Ian was spreading destruction in Florida and the Eastern coast of the United States, but we were far enough inland to be spared and rewarded with a brilliant blue sky and 80-degree temperature—a treat for October.
We were not alone. It was Carter’s birthday, so we shouldn’t have been surprised to see a lot of cars, several tour buses and a couple of shuttle buses. Outdoor tents were set up with dozens of folding chairs, obviously for some sort of presentation or lecture. And the National Park Service had set up tables with games and puzzles related to Carter’s presidency.
Turns out, the niceties were for a group of donors from the Carter Center, the Atlanta nonprofit Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter set up to focus on humanitarian causes and the importance of democratic elections after he left the presidency. Fortunately, their festivities were ending as we arrived. The group left to do a drive by of the Carter Compound, where the Carters were enjoying his birthday behind the property’s Secret Service-protected gates. Also in town were former staffers with the White House Communications Agency, who had planned a weekend reunion in Plains. (More on that later).
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| Carter boyhood home |
Carter’s boyhood home — the family moved there in 1924, when Jimmy was 4 — is an unassuming, one-level bungalow on the family farm. The house has both a front and back porch, and there are several spacious rooms on each side of the center hallway. Billy, who was 13 years younger, took over Jimmy’s room when Jimmy — who was the oldest of Earl and Lillian Carter’s children — went to the U.S. Naval Academy.
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| The windmill |
At first, the family had to use an outhouse. But in 1935, Earl Carter bought a windmill from a mail-order catalog, and built it with piping to provide running water for the kitchen and bathroom with shower and toilet. The shower head is actually a bucket with holes in the bottom, and the water was cold. But still, the family found the cold water superior to the no indoor water. The Carter family also installed electricity in 1938.
Each room in the bungalow is filled with books. Lillian Carter instilled a love of reading in her children, and in fact, encouraged them to read—rather than talk—at the breakfast table.
The farm was 360 acres, and Earl Carter grew cotton, corn, peanuts and sugar cane on the land in addition to the family garden and pecan trees. Earl sold it in 1949, with the National Park Service later buying 17 acres back in 1994 to establish the historic site.
The family had 20-30 mules and horses to work the crops, plus cows. Of all their chores, the Carter children hated cleaning the cotton the most.
The family also had pecan trees. The kids and Lillian would collect the pecans from the trees, walk down the railroad tracks to town and sell their pecans — “free money,” Lillian said.
The farm, which looks to have been self-sufficient, has more than a half-dozen buildings, including Earl Carter’s commissary/store, barns, a blacksmith building, pumping shed and tenant houses. It also has a grass tennis court and a reproduction of the windmill. Jimmy Carter voices the audio recordings in the various buildings, explaining life on the farm.
In one recording, Carter says that the proudest moment in his young life was when he and a mule were finally able to plow the land.
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| The Carter's general store |
The store in particular is quite impressive. It sold just about everything a farmer or tenant could need: sugar, flour, tobacco, food, lard, fatback, salmon, sardines, candy, clothes (gloves, overalls, shoes), medicine, soap, and matches, to name some of the items. It even has a gas pump.
Workers paid on credit, with the money coming out of their paychecks on payday. Unfortunately, that meant that the workers were almost always indebted to the Carters.
Currently, the farm has some chickens, five goats, a bunch of crops, and a scarecrow.
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| Jack & Rachel Clark |
Carter also shares in a recording that the black sharecropper couple that lived on the farm, Jack and Rachel Clark, were huge influences in his life, right behind his parents. Carter would stay with the Clarks when his parents were out of town.
The Clark’s house is not that small, but it does show the inferior construction as compared with the Carter home. There are holes between the floor boards, and newspapers hang on the walls as insulation.
Archery no longer exists. We asked a young volunteer what had happened to everyone. He said Archery “had dried out.” We could only ponder what that meant.
Having thoroughly toured the farm, we headed out. But we arrived at the high school/visitors center about five minutes before closing time, so we decided to return the next day and headed to the Carter Compound, as it is called, about a one-minute drive up the street.
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| Carter compound guarded by the Secret Service |
There is a public viewpoint on Main Street, technically on the Carters’ property. The Carter’s house is behind a Secret Service-guarded gate. You can’t see the house, though you can see some other buildings as well as part of the pond where Carter likes to fish. The beginning of Rosalynn Carter’s butterfly garden trail begins here, as well. We felt the eyes of the unseen Secret Service agents on us as we stared at the compound.
The Carters’ house was built in 1961 and has undergone several renovations. The property includes a pool, pond, jogging path, a guest house above Carter’s woodworking studio, and several other buildings.
In this house, Carter wrote his inaugural address and other important speeches, interviewed candidates for vice president and Cabinet positions, and met with foreign dignitaries. The house also houses a lot of memorabilia from the White House, a National Park Service guide told us.
Afterward, we headed out of town on country roads to spend the night at the Lake Blackshear Resort inside the Georgia Veterans State Park, about 45 minutes south.
Lake Blackshear
Lake Blackshear is in Cordell, Georgia. Don’t let the word “resort” fool you. It was a lovely space, with lots of things to do, but it wasn’t ostentatious.
Soon after we arrived, we enjoyed a sunset swim in the lake. Our swim was a mere 20 minutes, though — the
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| Swimming in Lake Blackshear |
water was cold, the sun was setting and we were concerned that the many alligators reportedly living in the area hadn’t gotten the memo that they dislike beaches and cold water, and would come to taste us. There are “Gator Country,” warning signs throughout the resort and state park.
After settling in, we had dinner at Cordelia’s restaurant at the resort. Cathy had shrimp and grits, being as we were in the south, while Tom had cioppino. For dessert, we had a delicious peach bread pudding crumble with vanilla ice cream. Yum!
The next morning, Cathy went for a run around the state park (both on trails and street) while Tom explored. The park features a bomber and three smaller planes, plus about a dozen tanks on display outdoors.
Afterward, we rented kayaks for an hour and explored the beautiful cypress swamps and checked out the wildlife. This is more likely where the gators would hang out, but we didn’t see any. Again, the weather was too cold for them to be active — but Cathy wasn’t taking any chances. She didn’t get too close to cypress, and stayed far away from the turtles on the log we saw (perfect snacks for any gators in the area).
Then we headed back north to Plains, after lunch at the resort’s Cypress Grill on the lake.
Visiting Plains and the rest of the historic site
We went directly to the Plains K-12 school, where the White House Communications Agency veterans were staging their reunion in the couple-hundred-seat auditorium.
The agency is a military branch that is in charge of all the secure communications at the White House — switchboards, communications on trips, internet, etc. The group started doing informal reunions several years ago at the hometowns of various presidents. Typically, a couple dozen people show up. But for the reunion in Plains, a couple hundred people came for the three-day gathering, several of the former staffers told us. We chatted with some of them. We were told that the WHCA is a semi-secret, 80-year-old military agency. It is part of the White House Military Office. Apparently, you can’t apply to the Agency, but are hand picked after much vetting. Cool cloak and dagger stuff.
One of the former staffers we met was Ron Peterson, who started working the White House switchboard in 1980 and told us about meeting President Carter during his first week on the job. He passed Carter as the president walked from the Old Executive Office Building (EOB) to the West Wing. They said “good morning” to each other. The agency was in charge of keeping track of Carter at all times. So he told his supervisor Carter was in the West Wing. His supervisor said no, he’s in the EOB. Mr. Peterson said no, I just passed him. Then a marine called to report that he had indeed arrived in the West Wing. It was an event young Peterson never forgot.
The school has been converted to a visitor’s center, with three adjoining rooms displaying information about Carter’s presidency and post-presidency. One room is set up as a schoolroom so visitors can see what school was like for Carter and his fellow students. There also are displays throughout discussing segregation and what that was like for the youth of Plains. Another room is a gift shop (of course).
The center is not chock full of historical information, like the Ford Museum was — you need to go to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta for that. But it did have some interesting history and some videos
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| Carter's high school, now a museum |
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Carter established two Cabinet departments: Energy in 1977 and Education in 1979. He also appointed the first Black female Cabinet member — Patricia Harris, who ran the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Carter, a nuclear power expert when he was with the Navy, had been long concerned about the environment and put 32 solar panels on the White House roof.
There are many photographs of Rosalynn Carter. Jimmy and Rosalynn knew each other all their lives. The day after their first date, Jimmy told his mother he was going to marry her. They married a year later on July 7, 1946. She was 18 and he was 21. They’ve now been married for 76 years!
Rosalynn was very involved in the presidency, almost shockingly so. Perhaps it was because Carter had learned his lesson after deciding to return from California to Plains when his father died—without consulting her. He also didn’t tell her he was running for the Georgia State Senate. Her wrath was considerable and after that he consulted with her on everything. During his presidency, she attended Cabinet meetings, held weekly lunches with Carter to discuss policy, was her husband’s representative with world leaders, met with Cabinet officials by herself, reviewed legislation and lobbied Congress.
The school/visitors center also houses videos and displays about his foreign policy accomplishments, particularly the Middle East peace talks at Camp David
The year was 1978 and Carter was able to convince the leaders of Egypt (Anwar Sadat) and Israel (Menachem Begin) to meet at Camp David, MD. The two leaders were so antagonistic toward each other that Carter had to meet with each leader separately and slowly negotiate the terms of a peace treaty. But within13 days, everyone had agreed to a framework for peace and signed the “Camp David Accords.” On March 26, 1979, the famous three-way handshake and signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty took place at the White House. It is Carter’s signal achievement. The display includes a picture of Anwar Sadat touring Carter’s woodworking studio with him.
That was the high-water mark of his presidency. It was all downhill from there: boycotting the Moscow 1980 Olympics in response to Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, 13% inflation, energy shortages, relinquishing ownership of the Panama Canal.
All of that was co-mingled with events in Iran. Ah, Iran.
In a remarkably bad piece of judgment, Carter said that “Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world” (Zelizer, 2010). In October of 1979, Carter allowed the Shah to come to the United States for medical treatment, creating a power vacuum in Iran which was quickly filled by the followers of the formerly exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. The Shah arrived in the U.S. on Oct. 23, 1979 and a few days later, Iranian students stormed the American embassy and took more than 50 diplomats hostage. The “Iranian Hostage Crisis” would grind on for the rest of his presidency. Carter authorized a rescue mission in 1980 that only resulted in a pile of broken machinery and eight dead soldiers in the Iranian desert.
Carter, who had had an approval rating of 75% earlier in his presidency was now below 30 percent. His presidency had started on such hope after Ford’s caretaker presidency. On inauguration day, he, Rosalynn and nine-year-old daughter Amy got out of the presidential limo and walked hand-in-hand down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
His presidency fizzled out and he never really stood a chance against Republican Ronald Reagan who won 489 electoral votes. Carter won only 49 electoral votes and won only Georgia in the South.
One room was dedicated to the Carter Center, Carter’s signature post-presidency project. Its mission is to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health (cartercenter.org). As laudable as the Center’s mission has been, there is a controversial event that may (or may not) have taken place in 2013. Tom’s 91-year-old mother, who follows our travels and participated in our last visit to the Gerald Ford Museum, told us that she detests Carter because he had praised the 2013 Venezuelan election. This would be surprising since Carter was a stickler for clean elections. In 1989, Carter denounced Panama’s election that was being manipulated by strongman leader President Manuel Noriega. Carter also helped set up the 1990 Nicaraguan national election at the invitation of Marxist President Daniel Ortega. With Carter’s system and with the Carter Center monitoring the election, Ortega lost to Violeta Chamorro.
So back to the Venezuelan election. A web search revealed a May 2013 story in Foreign Policy titled “Jimmy Carter gets it wrong on Venezuela, again.” The article states that Carter said that the election was "the best in the world." However, we could find no other references to that statement on the internet. We read the Carter Center’s report on monitoring the 2013 Venezuelan election but nowhere does it say anything about it being the “best in the world.” It does say that the automated voting machines worked but that there was no way to verify access to voting machines or to prevent multiple voting by individuals. The rest of the report noted gross inequities in access to media for non-state candidates as well as a lack of political observers in election audits. The report offered ten recommendations for better elections.
While at the farm, Tom asked a Carter Center staffer about Carter’s statement. She said that it “sounds like something he would say” sarcastically but he would have qualified it with all the reasons it was not. Was he quoted out of context? This is yet a mystery—at least to us.
Afterward, we toured the tiny town of Plains. And we mean tiny.
It is basically on one barely used two-lane road, aptly named Main Street, with a long building of storefronts, a grain silo, several churches and some other businesses. On Sunday afternoon, although most of the bedraggled stores were open, nobody was moving around on the sidewalk. There were only a handful of cars (including ours) parked on Main Street.
We popped in at Billy Carter’s Service Station, whose 1970s look has been preserved, right down to an old Coca-Cola machine and 1970s gas pumps. There also is a placard discussing the importance of the station historically: The media covering Carter’s campaign turned it into their headquarters.
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| 1976 Presidential headquarters |
The railroad depot, almost across the street, was the home of Carter’s 1976 campaign. It was chosen for one simple reason: It was the only public building in town that had a bathroom. It is tiny, basically one room and the bathroom. Trains don’t stop at the station any more. Next to the depot on Main Street as well as the butterfly garden path is a lovely headstone for “the Depot dog: “J-Who’ 1976-86.” The garden path is a beautiful assortment of flowers and plants, all luring bees and butterflies on this warm day. The garden includes benches and even a swinging loveseat to enjoy.
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| Downtown Plains |
Since it was a Sunday, many of the town’s stores were closed or had closed early. We finished our trip with a visit to the still open Plains Peanut Store. A young woman named Tonya served us some peanut butter soft serve ice cream, swirled with chocolate. Delicious! Tonya told us she moved to Georgia from Queens, NY because her sister had a crush on Dominque Wilkens of the Atlanta Hawks professional basketball team. And now she is in Plains and loving it. She said the cost of living can’t be beat. Indeed, our soft serve was only $2.50.
Brenda, the store owner—as well as many people around town—said the Carters are gracious and humble and “down to earth.” While we didn’t get to see them, even though we were so close, we did learn that the Carters had come into town Thursday night for dinner. One Park Service guide said that while he is now frail and in a wheelchair, his mind is still sharp and “you had better know your stuff” when talking with him.
We’ll end our journey by sharing a little story of how Carter and Gerald Ford became friends after the conclusion of their presidencies. They began their friendship as they travelled to Egypt in 1981 for the funeral of Anwar Sadat who had been gunned down by extremists because of the made peace he had made with Israel. Carter and Ford agreed to help each other raise funds for their presidential libraries. Over time they worked on many projects together. They became so close that Ford asked Carter to give the eulogy at his funeral, which Carter did. It’s a great example of how great men can put politics behind them and work together for the good of the country.
Directions
Plains, GA is located on U.S. 280 West about 2.5 hours south of Atlanta airport.
References
Cardenas, Jose R. 2013. Jimmy Carter gets it wrong on Venezuela, again. Foreign Policy, May 7, 2013.
Carter, Jimmy. 2015. A Full Life, A: Reflections at Ninety. Simon & Schuster. New York, NY.
DeFrank, Thomas. 2007. Write it When I’m Gone. Berkley Books. New York, NY.
Rubenstein, David. 2019. The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians. Bob Woodward on Richard M. Nixon Simon & Schuster. New York, NY.
Study Mission of The Carter Center 2013 Presidential Elections in Venezuela, Final Report. April 14, 2013. Cartercenter.org
Sullivan, Kevin and Jordan, Mary. 2021. The Carter’s Record-Setting Love Story. The Washington Post, July 6, 2021.
Zelizer, Julian. 2010. Jimmy Carter. Times Books. Henry Holt and Company. New York, NY.
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