Rosalynn Carter is eulogized before family and friends as husband Jimmy bears silent witness

An Armed Forces body bearer team carries the casket after funeral service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., on Wednesday. “And she became a partner in the true sense of the word, where they had equal footing.” Many family members, including the former president, wore leis to celebrate how much Rosalynn Carter loved living in Hawaii during the couple’s Navy years and learning to hula dance while her husband was stationed there. But “Rosalynn Carter was someone who would look at children from Sudan or Cambodia and say ‘That’s my baby, too.’” Several speakers addressed the former first lady’s resilience, perhaps most evident when her husband was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. Then came the Carter Center and its work on human rights, “and she knew that was the best part of their life.” Elaine Larkin, who lives in nearby Ellaville, worked at the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers at the former first lady’s alma mater, Georgia Southwestern State University. The motorcade passed holiday lights and decorations including a photo collage in front of the downtown tree featuring the “First Lady of Plains.” Her casket, topped with a spray of mixed flowers, was driven past the old high school where she was valedictorian during World War II, Plains Baptist Church where she and the former president were once outliers arguing for racial integration and the commercial district where she became Jimmy’s indispensable partner in their peanut business.