All About Jimmy Carter’s Humble Life Before Politics, Which Set the Stage for His Decades of Public Service

Former President Jimmy Carter died on Sunday, Dec. 29, at the record-breaking age of 100 years old.

In 2019, at the age of 94 years and 172 days, Carter became the longest-living president in United States history, who had already enjoyed the lengthiest post-presidency life.

But Carter’s life of service didn’t begin with his 1977 inauguration. From his humble roots as a Georgia peanut farmer to his years as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and more, here is a look into the 39th U.S. president’s life before the White House.

He was born and raised in Plains, Georgia

James “Jimmy” Earl Carter Jr. was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in the small, rural town of Plains, Ga., as the first child of parents James Earl Carter Sr. and Bessie Lillian Gordy Carter.

Born in Wise Sanitarium, where his mother worked as a nurse, Carter became the first American president to be born in a hospital, according to History.com. Aside from his mother’s nursing career, Carter’s family were primarily peanut farmers, and his father also owned a small general store in town, per the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

Carter grew up with three younger siblings — Gloria, born in 1926; Ruth, born in 1929; and Billy, born in 1937. As a child, Carter’s days consisted of working on the peanut farm that his family had cultivated. He was able to save up money by selling the family’s produce in town and, at one point, according to UVA’s Miller Center, had enough money to purchase five houses, which he then rented to families nearby.

He was a dedicated student

Carter attended Plains High School until the 11th grade, as the school did not have a 12th grade until 1952, according to the National Park Service.

After graduating from high school in 1941, Carter attempted to enter the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. As a young boy, he was enthralled by stories from his Uncle Tom, who was in the Navy while Carter was growing up. In fact, before he had even graduated from high school, Carter wrote to the Naval Academy to request its catalog.

Despite his enthusiasm, Carter was unsuccessful with his first application to the school. He spent a year at Georgia Southwestern College, then began studying math at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and finally earned his admission to the Academy in 1943, per NavyOnline.com.

Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy early on an accelerated wartime track, shortly after the end of World War II. He finished in the top 10% of his class.

He fell in love with his future wife, Rosalynn, while visiting home from the Naval Academy

Though they did not fall in love until many years later, Jimmy Carter first met his wife Rosalynn when he was only 3 years old, and she was less less than a day old.

Carter’s mother, a nurse, had helped deliver Rosalynn, whose family lived near the former president’s. Rosalynn would become close friends with Carter’s younger sister, Ruth.

While home from the Naval Academy the summer before his final year in Annapolis, 20-year-old Carter ran into Rosalynn, then 17, after her first year at Georgia Southwestern College.

The former president extended an invite to Rosalynn for the pair to go see a movie together. Carter told authors Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas (who wrote the book What Makes A Marriage Last) of the first date: “We rode in the rumble seat of a Ford pickup — Ruth and her boyfriend in the front — and I kissed her on that first date. I remember that vividly.”

After the date, Carter told his mother: “She’s the girl I want to marry.”

Rosalynn rejected Carter’s first proposal in 1945, as she wanted to continue focusing on her education. However, in 1946, when Carter popped the question again, Rosalynn said yes, and in July 1946, the two were married at the Plains Methodist Church shortly after Carter’s graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy.

He was a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy

After Carter married Rosalynn, the pair moved down to Norfolk, Va., for Carter’s first duty station post-graduation as an ensign (the lowest commissioned officer rank in the Navy).

Ensign Carter completed his first two years of surface ship duty on the USS Wyoming battleship, after which he decided to apply for submarine duty. He served as an executive officer, engineering officer, and electronics repair officer on the submarine SSK-1.

In 1952, Carter became involved with Admiral Hyman G. Rickover’s (known today as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy”) nuclear-powered submarine program. He was soon promoted to lieutenant, and from November 1952 to March 1953, served on temporary duty with the Naval Reactors Branch, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C.

Afterward, while Carter was in Schenectady, N.Y., taking classes on reactor technology and nuclear physics at Union College while gearing up to become the engineering officer for the USS Seawolf (one of the first submarines to operate on atomic power), his father, who had been sick with pancreatic cancer, died.

Carter resigned from his Naval duties in 1953 to return home to Plains and take care of his family’s farm and estate.

He revived his family’s peanut farm

After returning to Plains, Ga., to oversee his family’s farm, which had fallen on hard times in his father’s final years, Carter threw himself into reviving the family business.

Carter sacrificed his naval career to be in Plains. Rosalynn, who had enjoyed the steady income and travel as features of her husband’s job (she especially loved when he was stationed in Hawaii), found herself unhappy with her husband’s new pursuits.

Plus, the peanut business was no overnight success. In 1954, the farm made a scant $187 in net profits, according to the Miller Center. It wasn’t until five years later, in 1959, that the peanut farm finally began to resemble something successful.

He got involved in local politics amid racial tensions in his hometown

Leading his family’s peanut farm strengthened Carter’s community involvement, and would serve as the springboard for his career in politics.

According to the Miller Center, Carter began serving on local boards for hospitals and libraries while living in Plains. In 1955, he won a seat on the Sumter County Board of Education and later became its chairman.

Carter’s involvement on the Sumter County Board of Education came during a time of intense change in his Southern hometown. The civil rights movement was beginning to pick up steam, and racial tensions had billowed since the Supreme Court had ordered the desegregation of public schools in 1954.

Despite personally agreeing with desegregation, Carter found himself surrounded by the pro-segregation attitudes that were deeply entrenched in his hometown’s culture. At one point, he was met with fierce opposition as the only White man in Plains to refuse to join a segregationist group called the White Citizens’ Council.

In 1962, a mere 15 days before the election, Carter saw an opportunity to spark change in Georgia. So he announced his campaign to fill an open state Senate seat.

He worked his way to Georgia governor through the state Senate

Carter’s 1962 Georgia state Senate campaign was hard-fought, and initially it appeared that he’d lost the election to a local businessman named Homer Moore.

But upon investigation, it became apparent that Moore’s victory was the result of blatant voter fraud, according to the Miller Center. Carter jumped on the opportunity to appeal the outcome and was successful. He served two years as a state senator before turning his eye toward a larger prize: the Georgia governor’s office.

Carter had his sights set on the U.S. House of Representatives toward the end of his second term in the Georgia state Senate, hoping to challenge a political rival who held the seat, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. But when that incumbent, Bo Callaway, decided to run for governor instead, it unnerved Carter, who didn’t want to see Callaway take the reins of the state’s government.

Though Carter believed he could easily win the vacant House seat, he decided to challenge Callaway for governor in an attempt to keep him from power.

Carter ultimately lost the 1966 gubernatorial race, but he was undeterred. In 1970, he campaigned for governor again, taking a less liberal approach and appealing to the demographic of voters who had rejected him in 1966.

The Georgian peanut farmer won the gubernatorial race, aided by a more polished campaign that featured posters and relied on poll data to guide Carter’s campaign strategy.

He defeated incumbent Gerald Ford to become the 39th U.S. president

Though Carter was named campaign chairman of the Democratic National Convention in 1974 while serving as Georgia’s governor, his presidential campaign was marked by his relative unknownness. A newspaper back home in Georgia even ran a headline that read, “Jimmy Who Is Running For What?!” when he announced his bid for office.

Though his lack of recognition initially posed a challenge during his campaign, it ultimately became the driving force that propelled him to success as a candidate.

In the wake of the infamous Watergate scandal during President Nixon’s administration and in the years after the Vietnam War, the country was hungry for something new and far removed from the White House and Washington.

Gerald Ford, the incumbent who had offered Nixon a full pardon in the wake of the Watergate scandal, was exactly the opposite. His pardoning of Nixon discouraged voter’s confidence in him. Carter, a relative unknown in the world of politicians, was just what citizens were looking for to clean up Washington’s act.

Carter ultimately won the presidential election on a campaign that allowed him victories in many of the early primaries, appealing to both Southern voters (which he ultimately won) and Northerners in his running mate Walter Mondale.