Bessie Lillian Carter was the mother of Jimmy Carter, president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. She was also known for her contributions to nursing in her home state of Georgia and as a Peace Corps volunteer in India as well as for writing two books during the Carter presidency.
Who was Jimmy Carter’s mother Lillian Carter?
Bessie was born Bessie Lillian Gordy on August 15, 1898, in Richland, Georgia, to James Jackson Gordy and Mary Ida Nicholson Gordy. She was the niece of Berry Gordy I, who was the paternal half-brother of James Jackson Gordy and the grandfather of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy. She volunteered to serve as a nurse with the U.S. Army in 1917 but the program was canceled. Instead, she worked for the US Post Office at Richland before moving to Plains, Georgia in 1920 where she was accepted as a trainee at the Wise Sanitarium before completing her nursing degree at the Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Atlanta, Georgia in 1923.
Shortly after Bessie eldest son left office in January 1981, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. While her cancer was in remission in April 1983, her younger daughter, Ruth Carter Stapleton, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died on September 26, 1983, aged 54. Bessie herself succumbed to breast cancer that metastasized to the bone a month later on October 30, 1983, at age 85 in Americus, Georgia. Her three surviving children were by her side at her death. Carter was buried in a simple six-minute ceremony at Lebanon Church Cemetery, on November 1, 1983, next to her husband, who died 30 years before her.
In addition to her husband and daughter, two more of her children, Gloria Carter Spann, and Billy Carter, also died from pancreatic cancer. The former president was diagnosed with melanoma in 2015, at the age of 90. He survived cancer and stopped treatments in March 2016. In 2010, he had a severe stomach ache which was mistaken as pancreatic cancer. He has been a fundraiser and booster for research into a cure for the disease.
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Source: celebfaqs.com
