Carters Celebrate Their 75-Year 'Adventure'

More than 300 people gather at Plains High School to honor couple
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 10, 2021 5:10 PM CDT
Updated Jul 10, 2021 7:06 PM CDT
Carters Celebrate Their 75-Year 'Adventure'
President Jimmy Carter pauses to kiss first lady Rosalynn Carter as he boards a helicopter at the White House in 1979.   (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

Former President Jimmy Carter on Saturday turned to his wife, Rosalynn, and thanked her for 75 years of marriage, telling her that she's always been right for him. "I want to express particular gratitude for being the right woman that I chose for my wife," Carter said at a 75th wedding anniversary celebration in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. More than 300 friends and family members attended the event at Plains High School, the AP reports, which they attended 80 years ago. Rosalynn Carter recounted how she didn't care for young men while growing up and thought she'd never get married. "I didn't know how to talk to them, I didn't want to go out with them," she said. She added that she used to urge her mother to tell suitors calling her on the phone that she wasn't around. "And then, along came Jimmy Carter and my life has been an adventure ever since," she said.

The couple's marriage is "a full partnership," Jimmy Carter said recently. The two met when Jimmy Carter, a young midshipman, was home from the US Naval Academy. His younger sister set him up on a date with Rosalynn, a family friend who already had a crush on the future Georgia governor and 39th president. Their anniversary is the most recent milestone for the longest-married presidential couple in American history. Rosalynn Carter is 93. The former president, at 96, is the longest-lived of the 45 men who've held the job. On Saturday, the Carters circulated among the crowd that included friends and neighbors of both parties, per the Washington Post, and the couple's four children. Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, also were there, as were singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, former UN Ambassador Andrew Young, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Carter, wearing a dark suit jacket with a yellow flower on the lapel, closed his brief remarks by telling the people gathered: "I love you all very much."

(More Jimmy Carter stories.)

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