On Politics

Mon Nov 20 2023

Marina Pitofsky | Associate Editor/Politics

Hi OnPolitics readers! Former first lady Rosalynn Carter died on Sunday at 96. She and Jimmy Carter were married for 77 years, the longest married presidential couple.

In recent years, the Carters gave interviews and spoke publicly about their historic relationship. As the former president tells it, after their first date in 1945, he told his mother that Rosalynn was "the one I'm going to marry."

Here's a look at how the couple described their decades long marriage:

On winning the presidency: When asked what he was "most proud of having accomplished as a couple," Jimmy Carter told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Having been elected president with Rosa's good help."

On their free time: "I think we give each other space and we try to do things together. We're always looking for things we can do together, like birding and fly-fishing and just anything we can find to do together," Rosalynn Carter told PBS in 2021.

On their faith: "When I'm overseas and Rose is at home, we know we're reading the same biblical text, and even though we're separated physically, it makes us think about the same Scripture and admonition from God, direction from God, before we go to sleep," Carter previously told ABC News.