Rosalynn Carter fondly remembered by those in the Athens area who knew her

In 2014, Rosalynn Carter and her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, came to Athens to campaign for their grandson, Jason Carter, who was running for governor.

The Carters and their Secret Service detachment stopped in downtown.

Athens attorney Edward Brumby had left his office and happened upon Rosalynn Carter.

“I was just walking down the street to lunch and ran into her,” he said.

“I never ask anybody to take a picture with me, but I said, 'Would it be OK to take a picture?' And she said, 'Sure,'” Brumby recalled.

University of Georgia Public and International Affairs professor John A. Maltese happened to be downtown looking for a lunch spot as well that same day.

“I turned onto Clayton (Street) heading to a restaurant and there was Mrs. Carter with no crowd around her – just her and a homeless man and she was in deep conversation with him,” he said. “It really struck me that here she was taking the time to listen and communicate with this homeless person that many would ignore.”

The scene renewed Maltese's memory of a speech she made in 2007 on the UGA campus for a conference honoring the 30^th anniversary of Carter’s inauguration as President. She quoted anthropologist Margaret Mead by saying that she had used her position as a way to achieve “a society that is humanized and whose success is measured by the care we show for our most vulnerable citizens.”

That moment on Clayton Street epitomized for Maltese what she said that day to a conference of people that included former Vice President Walter Mondale and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

“She was carrying it out as a practice,” Maltese said.

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Maltese served as conference director for that occasion in 2007. He recalled that Mrs. Carter attended every session.

“She was the most active First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt and she went even further. Mrs. Roosevelt never sat in on cabinet meetings (as Carter did),” the political science professor said. Carter transformed the role of First Lady by creating the first formal staff and having an office in the East Wing of the White House, he said.

And probably few knew Mrs. Carter as well as Rita Lee Thompson, a native of Elberton, who worked four decades at the Carter Center in Atlanta from 1981 until she retired this year.

Thompson came to know the Carters as a teenager when she met them in 1963. Her father, Robert E. Lee, and Jimmy Carter were both freshmen state senators. She once attended a Senate reception with her father.

“I met the Carters. They sat down and talked to me the entire time. They were quiet and unassuming, not pretentious at all,” Thompson said in a telephone interview.

“That started my journey with the Carters,” said Thompson, who resided in a neighborhood on Forest Drive in Elberton while in high school.

Thompson said she was not involved in Carter’s election campaign when he became Georgia’s governor, but she quickly became involved when he announced his campaign for president. She traveled across the country through numerous states with what became known as “the Peanut Brigade.”

“It was an incredible time in history doing a door-to-door campaign,” she said.

After the successful election, Thompson served on the inaugural committee for the Carters, then afterward she returned to Georgia and settled in Atlanta, where her child was born.

After the Carter Center near Emory University was built, Thompson, who had worked at Grady Hospital, took a job with the center. She held positions there until she retired in February. She worked closely with the Carters with numerous tasks including preparing living arrangements on their humanitarian trips that took them to places throughout the world.

Thompson even joined Rosalynn Carter to shop for Christmas presents.

“She never forgot anyone at Christmas,” Thompson said.

From the time Thompson was a teenager she developed an admiration for this south Georgia couple, who dedicated their efforts to providing homes and mental health services for those in need.

“I could tell you when they were in the Carter Center. You could feel their energy when they were in the building,” said the woman, who walked in their shadow for so many years.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Rosalynn Carter fondly remembered by those who met her, worked for her