She chaired the center’s annual symposium on mental health issues and raised funds for efforts to aid the mentally ill and homeless. “I was hesitant, not at all sure that I could be happy here after the dazzle of the White House and the years of stimulating political battles,” she wrote in her 1984 autobiography, “First Lady from Plains.” But “we slowly rediscovered the satisfaction of a life we had left long before.”Īfter leaving Washington, Jimmy and Rosalynn co-founded The Carter Center in Atlanta to continue their work. She initially had little interest in returning to the small town of Plains, where they both were born, married and spent most of their lives. “I used to come home and say to Jimmy, ‘Why are people telling me their problems?’ And he said, ‘Because you may be the only person they’ll ever see who may be close to someone who can help them,’” she explained.Īfter Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election, Rosalynn Carter seemed more visibly devastated than her husband. She said she developed her interest in mental health during her husband’s campaigns for Georgia governor. She was back in Washington in 2007 to push Congress for improved mental health coverage, saying, “We’ve been working on this for so long, it finally seems to be in reach.” When the news media didn’t cover those efforts as much as she believed was warranted, she criticized reporters for writing only about “sexy subjects.”Īs honorary chairwoman of the President’s Commission on Mental Health, she once testified before a Senate subcommittee, becoming the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to address a congressional panel. Throughout her husband’s political career, she chose mental health and problems of the elderly as her signature policy emphasis.
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