Plains remembers Jimmy Carter as 'the best ex-president we've ever had'

PLAINS, Ga. — Mary Mancus on Monday fastened a white ribbon on the front door of Buffalo Café in honor of this southwest Georgia community’s hero, former President Jimmy Carter.

Mancus, who greets thousands of visitors to Plains every year as the downtown restaurant’s manager, sees her role as a champion of the Nobel Peace Prize recipient’s philanthropy and charitable work.

“I don’t care what you thought of his presidency, he was the best ex-president we’ve ever had and we should respect what he did,” she said.

Mancus moved to Plains when she was 18 and brought food to the Carters over the years. The former president’s favorite, she said, was chicken salad and pimento cheese. Since Sunday night, Mancus has been busy preparing more sweet tea and vegetable soup for the many mourners expected in Plains this week.

“As townspeople, our job is to relieve the pressure on the family,” she said. “We provide what we can in support and leave them alone so we can let them grieve in peace.”

Carter, the only Georgian ever elected to the White House, died Sunday. He was 100. He entered home hospice care in Plains in February 2023 after a series of short hospital stays.

Plains, a rural town about a three-hour drive south of Atlanta, has fewer than 1,000 residents.

Andrew Greer visited the historic train depot here Sunday night when the news of Carter’s passing was still fresh. As he stood on the platform of what served as Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters, Greer remembered him as a humanitarian and champion of democracy.

“You think about losing a pillar of the community in Plains,” said Greer, a Carter family friend who cowrote a song celebrating the former president’s 100th birthday this year. “On an international scale, you think about losing a pillar of peace. That is what I kept thinking today.”

Moments earlier, John Noel of Atlanta and his fiancee, Lori Gregg, spoke with reporters near a brightly lit Christmas tree and Nativity scene in downtown Plains. They were on a business trip to Bainbridge, when they decided to stop and pay their respects in Carter’s birthplace.

“We love the guy,” said Noel, an entrepreneur and former state legislator.

In his 2001 memoir “An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood,” Carter remembered selling boiled peanuts in Plains when he was five years old.

“Few people knew more about the Plains community than I did,” Carter wrote. “I became something of a fixture on the streets and in the business establishments, and the adults acted as though I didn’t exist.”

Carter’s mother, Lillian, was a nurse who helped deliver Rosalynn Smith, who would later become first lady Rosalynn Carter. The Carters lived in the same house in Plains from 1961 until Rosalynn died last year. She was 96 and had been battling dementia.

At the former first lady’s funeral in Atlanta, Amy Carter read from a letter her father sent her mother more than 75 years ago while he was serving with the U.S. Navy.

“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are. While I am away, I try to convince myself that you really are not, could not be, as sweet and beautiful as I remember,” she recited.

“But when I see you, I fall in love with you all over again. Does that seem strange to you? It doesn’t to me. Goodbye, darling. Until tomorrow, Jimmy.”

Jimmy and Rosalynn taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, a small house of worship located just outside of Plains. The former president mowed the grass there and crafted a wooden cross that stands in the sanctuary.

“It is difficult for me to explain why the town of Plains is so attractive to Rosalynn and me,” he wrote in his memoir. “Plains is where I’ve seen the members of my family laid to rest, and where we expect to be buried.”

Jan Williams, a longtime Plains resident who serves as Maranatha Baptist Church’s clerk and pianist, said a prayer vigil was planned for Monday evening at the house of worship.

“My husband and I have been receiving so many text messages from people who came to Maranatha to hear him teach and who wanted to share what an honor it was to be in his presence and what an effect it has had on their lives,” she said.

“I know that is what Jimmy Carter wanted — to have an effect on everybody he met so they could be a better person in the coming days. He always said, ‘If you can love the person in front of you, it would be a much better world.’”

This date sticks out clearly in Tiffani Lowden’s memories: April 8, 2018. That’s when she met Carter during one of his Sunday School services here. A schoolteacher, Lowden is inspired by how Carter “walked a life of Christ.” She brought students to Plains to teach them there is goodness in everyone and that they can achieve their goals regardless of where they come from.

On Monday morning, Lowden strolled through Carter’s boyhood farm, referring to him as “Uncle Jimmy.” It felt holy for her to stand near where Carter will eventually be buried in Plains.

“He’s home,” she said. “He’s where he wanted to be.”

Carter graduated from Plains High School in 1941. The school is now part of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Park, which displays some of his mementos as well as a large black and white photograph of him and Rosalynn riding a tandem bicycle.

Jill Stuckey, the historic park’s superintendent, was visiting her mother in Ohio on Sunday when she learned the former president had died. As she drove back to Georgia, she called the news bittersweet.

“He wanted to be with Rosalynn, so today is the day that he got his wish,” she said. “Others of us selfishly wish he could have been on this Earth with us.”

The National Park Service will bring in additional staff this week, Stuckey said, to prepare for the crowds of mourners.

“He was such an inspiration to so many of us,” Stuckey said. “I’ve been fortunate enough for nearly 30 years to be with my heroes.”