At Carter Center, Atlantans bring peanuts, flowers to mourn 'passing of an era'

Olivia Wakim and Taylor Croft, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Dec 30, 2024

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As the sun rose Monday for the first time in a century without Jimmy Carter, it illuminated flowers and a can of peanuts placed by mourners at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta.

Carter, the 39th president and former Georgia governor, died Sunday at age 100. He entered home hospice care in Plains in February 2023 after a series of short hospital stays.

In the hours since his death, the nonprofit Carter Center, founded in 1982, and the nearby Jimmy Carter Library and Museum became a spot for Atlantans to gather and pay their respects. Since Sunday afternoon, a collection of flowers and candles steadily grew at the center in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood.

Gray and Marge Crouse walked from their Inman Park home early Monday morning to photograph the Carter Center sign. To Marge Crouse, Jimmy Carter’s death represents “the passing of an era, one of the first presidents I remember,” she said.

Gray Crouse said he voted for Carter during both of his presidential runs. The couple moved to Georgia in 1984, so their most poignant memories of Carter were of his activities after he left the White House.

”That drew me more to him than anything else — that he was just a wonderful human being,” said Marge Crouse.

Gray Crouse, a retired Emory University faculty member, had lunch twice with the former president at the Carter Center. He recalled that instead of ordering a meal or bringing in catering, Carter got lunch from the cafeteria just like everybody else.

”I was impressed by how bright he was and how engaged he was — just what a warm person he was,” Gray said. “He was really, very special.”

While Carter’s legacy already stretched large while he was alive, Gray expects that his presidency will continue to be reevaluated in the years following his death.

”You look back at his presidency and see how far advanced he was in so many things he did,” he said.

Christine Mason brought a bright bouquet of flowers to the Carter Center. She felt she needed to pay tribute to a man who was “one of Atlanta’s — Georgia’s —people, like John Lewis or MLK: people that make a difference for everybody.”

Mason, 45, was baby when Carter was president. After his term, he could have retired and simply enjoyed his life, she said.

”But he went back and helped people. That makes a difference,” she said.