Former first lady Rosalynn Carter died Saturday at the age of 96. Her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, just celebrated his 99th birthday on Oct. 1. A couple of local Hawaii residents told me they had met the Carters.
Robert M. Armstrong, who lives in the downtown- Chinatown area, said: “Many years ago I found myself working and living in Panama City Beach, Fla., approximately four hours from Plains, Ga., the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter.
“While he only had four years as president, 1977-1981, they were dominated by the Iranian hostage crisis. I nonetheless admired and respected his courage and, in particular, the man he has always been.
“I wrote him a letter of appreciation, and four weeks later his office called and offered to meet, if I would come on a Sunday after he taught Bible study. I jumped at the chance.
“Following a three-hour service, which Carter taught half of, he met me and seven other well- wishers in the courtyard of the church. He spent between five and 10 minutes with each one of us.”
Armstrong remembers asking Carter about his decision to shift recognition from Taiwan to mainland China and about traveling to developing countries. He was overseeing several elections in emerging democracies.
“His answers were very direct, and he was incredibly generous with his time to all of us. While driving home, I couldn’t help but see that this once ‘most powerful man in the world’ was also a kind and sincere servant of God. He remains a hero of mine.”
Bev and Walter Chow
Walter Chow said he and his wife, Bev Lum-Chow, also met Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter.
“Bev was a Manoa Valley resident as well as a University of Hawaii Manoa graduate before we married,” Walter Chow told me.
“She moved to Atlanta, where I was employed as a public health adviser for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Library, affiliated with Emory University, is also located in Atlanta, which we had been to a number of times.”
Chow said he knew that former President Carter and Rosalynn lived in Plains, Ga., and attended Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, some 140 miles from Atlanta.
“Bev and I drove down to Plains in 2013 and attended President Carter’s presentation. After the Sunday service any attendee could pose for a portrait with the Carters, which we were happy to be able to do.
“President Carter asked Bev where we were from, and Bev said that her father was a pediatrician for the Navy and that she was born at Pearl Harbor.
“Carter replied that he had a tour of duty with the Navy at Pearl Harbor and that one of his sons was born while he and Mrs. Carter were stationed at Pearl.
“I stood next to Mrs. Carter and told her that this was my second time meeting her. The first time was at the CDC a few years earlier, after she was a panel member promoting her book on mental health, and she was in the receiving line after the session.
“For both Bev and myself, meeting the Carters and getting our photo with them was the highlight of our summer.
“After 42 years with the CDC, I retired in 2016, and Bev and I relocated to her beloved Hawaii in 2020, where we live in East Honolulu.”
Team effort
“President Carter considered his relationship with Rosalynn to be the best thing to happen in his life,” Walter Chow continued, “and that all his endeavors and accomplishments were very much a team effort credited to Rosalynn, his life partner.
“Though polls of historians and political scientists generally rank President Carter as a below-average president, his post-presidential activities are viewed very favorably, in particular his activities through the Carter Center, an organization committed to human rights and alleviating human suffering, along with Habitat for Humanity.
“After living in Atlanta for 37 years, from 1983-2020, I related to a number of common threads with President Carter, including his attendance at the Georgia Institute of Technology before transferring to the Naval Academy. My two sons graduated from Georgia Tech.”
Pearl Harbor
Ensign James Earl Carter Jr. was stationed at Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Pomfret, a submarine, in December 1948. A pomfret is a fish that can swim fast at great depths.
Carter served as communications officer, sonar officer, electronics officer, gunnery officer and supply officer during a simulated war patrol to the western Pacific and the Chinese coast in January 1949.
One of his three sons, James Earl “Chip” Carter III, was born April 12, 1950, in Honolulu.
In a 2008 interview, Chip said his nickname was given to him while he was in Honolulu.
“‘Chip’ is Hawaiian for ‘baby,’ and my blue armband when I was born had ‘Chip Carter’ written on it, which meant ‘baby Carter.’ That’s how I got the name Chip.”
Of course, “Chip” is not a Hawaiian word. “Baby” would most likely be “keiki,” for children of either gender.
Campaigning
Chip Carter “returned home” to Hawaii in 1976 while campaigning for his father. The 26-year-old and his wife, Caron, talked with newsmen at the airport.
Carter said his father could win the Democratic nomination for president on the first ballot at the convention in New York, July 12-15, if he could win over enough uncommitted delegates.
On behalf of his father, Carter called on Mayor Frank Fasi, Senate President John Ushijima and Gov. George Ariyoshi, titular head of the Democratic party, after his news conference.
Ariyoshi said that he preferred Hawaii send an uncommitted delegation to the convention. “Although we are a small delegation,” Ariyoshi said, “our strength is that we are united.”
Hawaii’s Democrats had already voted to give Washington Sen. Henry Jackson and Arizona Rep. Morris Udall one vote each and keep Hawaii’s other 15 votes uncommitted.
Chip Carter told reporters he lived in Hawaii for only his first six months. He and his wife wanted “to take in the sights and swim in the ocean,” if he could find time in between campaign events.
Caron, his wife of three years, told newsmen she wanted “to see everything. “But I guess we won’t have the time and will have to come back after the election.”
After their meeting with Ariyoshi, the Carters stopped to talk with sumo wrestler Jesse Kuhaulua (Takamiyama), who visited Gov. Ariyoshi before leaving for the mainland. The sumo champion was flying to Los Angeles to be a guest on the “Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.”
The Carters
Jimmy Carter was nominated for president on the first ballot of the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Hawaii’s delegation was one of the most colorful, wearing aloha shirts and lei. Rosalynn Carter wore a red carnation lei as her husband gave his acceptance speech.
Carter beat Republican Gerald Ford in November of that year but lost four years later in 1980 to Ronald Reagan.
Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter were married an astonishing 77 years. Jimmy’s mother, “Miss Lillian,” was a nurse who helped deliver Rosalynn in 1927. She brought 3-year-old Jimmy to see the 1-day-old baby, so, in actuality, they knew each other for 96 years.
Rosalynn encouraged her husband to appoint more women to important positions, New York Times journalist Jonathan Alter said. And he did, naming five times as many women to federal judgeships as all of his predecessors combined.
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Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
