Former first lady Rosalynn Carter enters hospice care as she battles dementia
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has entered hospice care at home and will be "spending time with" former President Jimmy Carter and her family, the couple's grandson announced.
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia, her family announced in May. Ms Carter, now 95, was living at home with former President Jimmy Carter, who has been at home receiving hospice care since early this year.
“She continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains and visits with loved ones,” the family said via The Carter Center, the global humanitarian organization the couple founded in 1982 after leaving the White House, in May when the announcement was made.
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President Jimmy Carter (L) and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter attend the 25th anniversary MusiCares 2015 Person Of The Year Gala (Getty Images)Married for nearly 77 years, the Carters are the longest-married first couple in U.S. history. The couple recently celebrated Jimmy's Cater's 99th birthday with their family, in October.
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The gathering took place in the same one-story structure where the Carters lived before he was first elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962. As tributes poured in from around the world, it was an opportunity for Carter’s family to honor his personal legacy, with his wife, Rosalynn, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren attending the affair.
“The remarkable piece to me and I think to my family is that while my grandparents have accomplished so much, they have really remained the same sort of South Georgia couple that lives in a 600-person village where they were born,” said grandson Jason Carter, who chairs the board at The Carter Center, which his grandparents founded in 1982 after leaving the White House a year earlier.
US First Lady Rosalynn Carter climbs the steps to her plane during a trip, Texas, September 1978 (Getty Images)The family had a similar quiet party to celebrate Rosalynn's 96th birthday in August, months after her dementia diagnosis. Rosalynn and her family planned a quiet celebration, according to The Carter Center. She ate cupcakes and peanut butter ice cream, nodding to the couple’s experience as Georgia peanut farmers, which became part of their political branding.
She also released butterflies in the Carters’ garden; her love of butterflies traces back to childhood. Extended family and friends also held butterfly releases around Plains, including at the small public garden next to the home where Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was born on Aug. 18, 1927.
Since her husband was Georgia's governor in the early 1970s, Rosalynn Carter has called for a more comprehensive American healthcare system treating mental health as integral to overall health and recognizing the importance of caregivers to the nation’s social and economic well-being.
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