June 14, 2021 • 18 mins
How often do you get to talk to a former President and First Lady — about love? Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter explain how they’ve kept their marriage alive for — consider this — 75 years, and how the hardest thing they ever did was not surviving the White House, but writing a book together.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. Hi, I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlowe Thomas, and
we're going on a series of double dates to find
out what makes a marriage. Last I interviewed Jimmy Carter
(00:40):
on my show when he was president, but it was
very different sitting with him. In first, Lady Rosalind coupled
a couple and talking about something as personal as our marriages.
We flew down to Atlanta and met them at the
Carter Center, their legendary humanitarian foundation. This was our first
interview for this project, and what a way to start
(01:02):
with American royalty. We were shown into his very formal office.
I remember the huge flags on either side of the desk,
one with the stars and stripes and the other with
the presidential seal. And he just came bounding in, this
man in his nineties, and he pointed out a beautiful
wooden chair that he had carved himself. He was impressive.
(01:25):
I'm sure it must be a challenge for Rosalind to
keep up with his energy. They've been together for an
unbelievable seventy five years, so we had to ask them how,
first of all, love and friendship goes together. And we
found a long time ago that arguments and disagreements are inevitable,
(01:48):
you know, among two strong willed people. But we decided
quite early in our burage to give each other plenty
of space. In fact, if Rosa's interested in herself, she
doesn't her own way, and she accepts my help when
she needs it and advice when I have a special interest.
(02:11):
She gives me a plenty of a space of time
to work on my own projects, but she helps me
when I need it. So space is the first thing,
and our thing. The other key is we decided quite
a while ago to make sure we didn't ever go
to sleep anger with each other. We have a lot
of arguments during the daytime, but we just made up
(02:35):
my mind that we would try to become reconcile at night.
So so we never to go to sleep same man
still angry, and that's great. You know we were talking,
is what is it that some people never can come
back from a misunderstanding? Well, how do you think that
(02:56):
you guys always come back from it? Well, first of all,
we have a basic premise of not ever being deprived
of ability to communicate with each other. Sometimes we do
get on the huff and ros my powerful little ball
and my powerful wall. But we try to get reconciled.
And most of the time I take the initiative when
(03:18):
I realized that either two sides to the issue or
that I was rolling something like that. One thing we do.
We're Christians, both of us. So we read the Bibble
every night, and we have done that for fifty years
maybe really, yeah, And how do you go in order?
(03:39):
Or do you pick a page or just and right
now we're going through the New Testament in Spanish. We
have a Spanish English persion. So one night Rosen reads
and the next night I read. And traveling overseas or
when Rosa was traveling, we still read the same shift
in the Bible. And so we know that, you know,
(04:01):
even though we might be five thousand miles apart, we
still share the same taste. So it's been all in all,
it's obviously been a good life. It has been been
a good luck now, but Matt without its challenges, that's right.
We've had constant challenges and and and set back, you know,
not getting re elected president. The first time I ran
(04:23):
for government, I failed to be elected. And how did
you come back from those losses? Did you use Rosa
to help you back or did you go in a
corner and powder. How did you think? I think he
had to help me. I was the one upset, really yeah,
and he was upset, but I was more upset, I
(04:44):
think because he if he doesn't help me out, don't
think I've forgotten when I failed and politics. Rosa was
angry with the public, she was angry with Reagan and
so forth. I had to take of ways to calmlow down.
So I was searching for constantly Paul for good things
(05:06):
about not being re elected, you know, so I had
to he's a pain, which we did. And so that's
how the quarter set of was born something to do.
I was. I was just fifty six years old. That
Rosa was just fifty three, so we we had to
say twenty five years of life ahead of us. Right.
(05:30):
This was the point where I had to remind myself
that they actually got married in nineteen forty six. We
didn't even have a television set in our house. We
were still in grade school and Harry Truman was in
the White House. When you got married so young, Well,
how old were you, guys? I was one month, I
was nineteen, had a baby one month twenty and how
(05:53):
are you so twenty was on the way to be
twenty one? We graduated back then when we were sixteen.
Oh yeah, we had eleven grades and there was nothing
a woman could do except me a school teacher. A
lot very ran now six sugars. Yeah. The culture when
(06:17):
I graduated it was you get married in him babies. Yes, Well,
what about this guy made you think he was the one? Well,
Jimmy's sister Ruth was my bench friend. I spent a
lot of time at that house. He was never there,
and um, I always said, I fell in love with
a photograph on the ball in her bedroom. I read
(06:39):
somewhere where you knew right away that she was your
the one I did. Yeah, well what was that? I'm
so excited about that, because that's I felt when I
went on the Donning You show. Well, I had had
a lot of girlfriends, you know, going up in high
school and so forth. I was cruising around with my
sister Ruth and her boyfriend and just looking for a day.
(06:59):
I picked up Rosen in front of the best of church.
And you think that up girls at the church at
a church, Well, that's where what your young coachable symbol
at that Churchill was sent about a life. But uh.
But the next morning, after our first date, my mother
(07:20):
asked me quest some questions, and I finally told her
that Rosa was the one I wanted to marry and
why why? What was it? I just felt compatible with
her and she was beautiful, and I guess there was
a russener say. I kissed her on our first date.
I remember that baby to day. But we rode in
(07:42):
the Roman seat of Poard Coup and my sister Ruth
and her boyfriend boyfriend who was driving. I have no
idea what, but I never was doubtful. Nobody so the
father and Christmas. I told her love to her, and
it's Christmas. The next February, twenty seconds it was was
(08:05):
George Washington and Lincoln's joint birthday day. They were to me.
My parents came up and Rosa came up with him
to visit me, and that's when I remember asking Mary
but anyway, she said no really, so from a fair
way told May. My impression was that she was dating
(08:26):
all the other available boys to find a better match.
And finally in May she said, okay, why did you
say no? Before my father died when I was thirteen,
I was the oldest, four head of sister four and
two brothers in between. And on his death bed he
called us in the room and I promised him that
(08:49):
I would go to college, and it was hard for
me to go against that. Right, I graduated from college,
so you got two years in. We were living in
Norfolk in the navy, and and when when she had
the baby, we had been married almost exactly a year.
(09:12):
I was gold at sea most of the time, and
so she had full responsibility to take care of the household,
to shop for groceries, and had to pay the bills
and everything else. I was. I had a stal life,
you much. We lived upstairs over the skipper and his
wife would say all the time, so that anytime I
(09:34):
needed anything with the new baby, she was there to
help me. And uh, and then all of us, so
many of the wives being pregnant and having babies and
everything made it easier for me because we you know,
we just got together while the men were gone. He
used to go get groceries with the baby, and I
would get off on the street corners and the bus
(09:57):
and put the groceries down, running with the baby, go
back and get it was tough, yeah, but I did
develop some independence because he was gone, so he was
enjoying it. I had to had a total household. Yeah,
she was. As far as major decisions was concerned. I
(10:18):
never did even consult with her. And later when we
got home from Native we didn't have any money. We
lived in the government housing project in Plains, And when
I decided to run for the state Senate after being
a farmer for a long time, I didn't even consult
with her about it. I just came in one day
(10:42):
and began to change my work clothes into suiting and coat,
and she asked me if I'm little funeral somewhere had
to go to. I said, no, I'm going and run
for the state Senate. But I never did even discuss
that with her before before I made the finals of season. Wow,
you talk about that man, that could possibly have happened. Yeah,
(11:04):
but what I would dream of doing that for the
last forty five years. About marriage, I mean, can you imagine,
here's this peeded farmer who decides to run for the
Senate and doesn't even mention it to his wife. But
eventually they found the key that made their marriage evolve.
We began to work together as equals. In our business.
(11:28):
I kept our books, and so it was not very
long before I knew on paper more about the work
than he did, and we became partners in and I
began to consultant Rosen before I made any major decisions.
So it was a transformation in a marriage. We'll have
(11:49):
more after a quick break. We're back to our conversation
with former President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalind Carter.
They were described to us how the power dynamic in
(12:11):
their marriage became more balanced in their decades together. But
I was still curious, what was the challenge that was
the toughest for them to overcome when we try to
write a book together. So we all be careful. That's true.
That was the biggest challenge to our marriage book. But
(12:32):
we started writing the book and we decided I would
write one chapter and that she would write the next one,
and we would swop chapters and edit each other. But
basically we had a different writing style. I write very rapidly.
I read thirty four books at all, you know, I
write very rapidly and Rosen doesn't. So I would write
(12:55):
my chapter and give me the Rosen to edit, and
she would book to put it as a rough draft,
but when she finished a chapter it was like she
had been about side of and God had given us
heard this prescious tech vault and stone and if I
changed wouldn't word in it it because up serious distress.
(13:18):
So we had a we soon old. We soon decided
that we would give Peter Osenos you know, uh they're small,
advanced back and uh and forgetting the book real it
was it was breaking up our marriage. We couldn't talk
about it. We couldn't We couldn't even discuss it with
(13:40):
each other. We just wrote out their letters back and
forth on the word process. But we would agree on
ninety the tile ninety seven percent of the road, but
the three percent we didn't agree on because there's something happened.
I might have thought it was humorous and she might
have thought it was very serious. So Peter Osenos came
down the planes and I had the things, and said,
(14:05):
I hate for you to give up this book because
it has a good potential, And I said, okay. So
he he went down throughout the book and filed out
the paragraphs on which we couldn't agree completely, so he
divided them up. He gave half the paragraphs to me
and has the other half of paragraphs to Rosen. You
knew and in the book it had a Even when
(14:28):
they printed up the book, Peter, I wasn't put an
r by Rose's paragraphs on a jay by my paragraph
And so when when I had a paragraph, I could
write the filer version of Rose couldn't. He couldn't change it,
and vice versa. So we saved the book and it
was hard. It always broke up your marriage. The biggest
(14:49):
surprise for me here in the short term we've had
is I think you're a feminist. Well, I'm always thought
I was, But Jimmy has always thought I could do
anything always, and so I campaigned all over the country.
I mean, U, I've done things I never dreamed I
(15:10):
could do. And and we've done things together, like we
took down her skiing lessons when he was sixty two
and hours fifty nine. I mean, we started skiing agents.
He doesn't only want to learn about things, he wants
to do them because that we're doing birth watching him
with all kinds of stuff together, and it's just been had.
(15:35):
Things happened to us, like living in a dream, Yeah,
because of him, Because he just had confidence that I
could do anything. Yeah, yeah, and so they gave me
confidence that I could do it. If you could give
advice to a couple to married already or about to
be married, what would you say that would maybe help them?
(16:00):
I would say, give each other plenty of space and
do your own thing. Fine. They used to do together
and try to reconcilid the end of every day, which
means you have to communicate with each other. What about you, Wilson? Then,
I think that I went so long from being then
(16:21):
doing what he said, and we really had to work
at it a little bit, you know, to make it
so that it was all right for me to do
what I wanted to do and him to do what
he wanted to do. And we still care for each other, right,
that's the most important thing. It wasn't my life, and
I think probably Jimmy's too. For you to finally be
(16:42):
who you wanted to be. That's former President Jimmy Carter
and First Lady Rosalind Carter. I loved hearing how they
grew together. An inspiring couple and a true honor to
be with them. Until next time. I'm Phil Donahue and
I'm Marlow Thomas Oh It's been great. I Thank you,
(17:06):
Thank You. Double Data is a production of Pushkin Industries.
The show was created by US and produced by Sarah Lilly.
Michael Bahari is associate producer. Musical adaptations of It Had
to Be You by Sellwagen, Simfinette, Marlo and I are
executive producers, along with Mia Lobell and Letal Molad from Pushkin.
(17:31):
Special thanks to Jacob Wiseburg, Malcolm Gladwell, Heather Faine, John Snars,
Carly Migliori, Eric Sandler, Emily Rostak, Jason Gambrell, Paul Williams,
and Bruce Kluger. If you like our show, please remember
to share, rate, and review. Thanks for listening.
Pushkin. Hi, I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlowe Thomas, and
we're going on a series of double dates to find
out what makes a marriage. Last I interviewed Jimmy Carter
(00:40):
on my show when he was president, but it was
very different sitting with him. In first, Lady Rosalind coupled
a couple and talking about something as personal as our marriages.
We flew down to Atlanta and met them at the
Carter Center, their legendary humanitarian foundation. This was our first
interview for this project, and what a way to start
(01:02):
with American royalty. We were shown into his very formal office.
I remember the huge flags on either side of the desk,
one with the stars and stripes and the other with
the presidential seal. And he just came bounding in, this
man in his nineties, and he pointed out a beautiful
wooden chair that he had carved himself. He was impressive.
(01:25):
I'm sure it must be a challenge for Rosalind to
keep up with his energy. They've been together for an
unbelievable seventy five years, so we had to ask them how,
first of all, love and friendship goes together. And we
found a long time ago that arguments and disagreements are inevitable,
(01:48):
you know, among two strong willed people. But we decided
quite early in our burage to give each other plenty
of space. In fact, if Rosa's interested in herself, she
doesn't her own way, and she accepts my help when
she needs it and advice when I have a special interest.
(02:11):
She gives me a plenty of a space of time
to work on my own projects, but she helps me
when I need it. So space is the first thing,
and our thing. The other key is we decided quite
a while ago to make sure we didn't ever go
to sleep anger with each other. We have a lot
of arguments during the daytime, but we just made up
(02:35):
my mind that we would try to become reconcile at night.
So so we never to go to sleep same man
still angry, and that's great. You know we were talking,
is what is it that some people never can come
back from a misunderstanding? Well, how do you think that
(02:56):
you guys always come back from it? Well, first of all,
we have a basic premise of not ever being deprived
of ability to communicate with each other. Sometimes we do
get on the huff and ros my powerful little ball
and my powerful wall. But we try to get reconciled.
And most of the time I take the initiative when
(03:18):
I realized that either two sides to the issue or
that I was rolling something like that. One thing we do.
We're Christians, both of us. So we read the Bibble
every night, and we have done that for fifty years
maybe really, yeah, And how do you go in order?
(03:39):
Or do you pick a page or just and right
now we're going through the New Testament in Spanish. We
have a Spanish English persion. So one night Rosen reads
and the next night I read. And traveling overseas or
when Rosa was traveling, we still read the same shift
in the Bible. And so we know that, you know,
(04:01):
even though we might be five thousand miles apart, we
still share the same taste. So it's been all in all,
it's obviously been a good life. It has been been
a good luck now, but Matt without its challenges, that's right.
We've had constant challenges and and and set back, you know,
not getting re elected president. The first time I ran
(04:23):
for government, I failed to be elected. And how did
you come back from those losses? Did you use Rosa
to help you back or did you go in a
corner and powder. How did you think? I think he
had to help me. I was the one upset, really yeah,
and he was upset, but I was more upset, I
(04:44):
think because he if he doesn't help me out, don't
think I've forgotten when I failed and politics. Rosa was
angry with the public, she was angry with Reagan and
so forth. I had to take of ways to calmlow down.
So I was searching for constantly Paul for good things
(05:06):
about not being re elected, you know, so I had
to he's a pain, which we did. And so that's
how the quarter set of was born something to do.
I was. I was just fifty six years old. That
Rosa was just fifty three, so we we had to
say twenty five years of life ahead of us. Right.
(05:30):
This was the point where I had to remind myself
that they actually got married in nineteen forty six. We
didn't even have a television set in our house. We
were still in grade school and Harry Truman was in
the White House. When you got married so young, Well,
how old were you, guys? I was one month, I
was nineteen, had a baby one month twenty and how
(05:53):
are you so twenty was on the way to be
twenty one? We graduated back then when we were sixteen.
Oh yeah, we had eleven grades and there was nothing
a woman could do except me a school teacher. A
lot very ran now six sugars. Yeah. The culture when
(06:17):
I graduated it was you get married in him babies. Yes, Well,
what about this guy made you think he was the one? Well,
Jimmy's sister Ruth was my bench friend. I spent a
lot of time at that house. He was never there,
and um, I always said, I fell in love with
a photograph on the ball in her bedroom. I read
(06:39):
somewhere where you knew right away that she was your
the one I did. Yeah, well what was that? I'm
so excited about that, because that's I felt when I
went on the Donning You show. Well, I had had
a lot of girlfriends, you know, going up in high
school and so forth. I was cruising around with my
sister Ruth and her boyfriend and just looking for a day.
(06:59):
I picked up Rosen in front of the best of church.
And you think that up girls at the church at
a church, Well, that's where what your young coachable symbol
at that Churchill was sent about a life. But uh.
But the next morning, after our first date, my mother
(07:20):
asked me quest some questions, and I finally told her
that Rosa was the one I wanted to marry and
why why? What was it? I just felt compatible with
her and she was beautiful, and I guess there was
a russener say. I kissed her on our first date.
I remember that baby to day. But we rode in
(07:42):
the Roman seat of Poard Coup and my sister Ruth
and her boyfriend boyfriend who was driving. I have no
idea what, but I never was doubtful. Nobody so the
father and Christmas. I told her love to her, and
it's Christmas. The next February, twenty seconds it was was
(08:05):
George Washington and Lincoln's joint birthday day. They were to me.
My parents came up and Rosa came up with him
to visit me, and that's when I remember asking Mary
but anyway, she said no really, so from a fair
way told May. My impression was that she was dating
(08:26):
all the other available boys to find a better match.
And finally in May she said, okay, why did you
say no? Before my father died when I was thirteen,
I was the oldest, four head of sister four and
two brothers in between. And on his death bed he
called us in the room and I promised him that
(08:49):
I would go to college, and it was hard for
me to go against that. Right, I graduated from college,
so you got two years in. We were living in
Norfolk in the navy, and and when when she had
the baby, we had been married almost exactly a year.
(09:12):
I was gold at sea most of the time, and
so she had full responsibility to take care of the household,
to shop for groceries, and had to pay the bills
and everything else. I was. I had a stal life,
you much. We lived upstairs over the skipper and his
wife would say all the time, so that anytime I
(09:34):
needed anything with the new baby, she was there to
help me. And uh, and then all of us, so
many of the wives being pregnant and having babies and
everything made it easier for me because we you know,
we just got together while the men were gone. He
used to go get groceries with the baby, and I
would get off on the street corners and the bus
(09:57):
and put the groceries down, running with the baby, go
back and get it was tough, yeah, but I did
develop some independence because he was gone, so he was
enjoying it. I had to had a total household. Yeah,
she was. As far as major decisions was concerned. I
(10:18):
never did even consult with her. And later when we
got home from Native we didn't have any money. We
lived in the government housing project in Plains, And when
I decided to run for the state Senate after being
a farmer for a long time, I didn't even consult
with her about it. I just came in one day
(10:42):
and began to change my work clothes into suiting and coat,
and she asked me if I'm little funeral somewhere had
to go to. I said, no, I'm going and run
for the state Senate. But I never did even discuss
that with her before before I made the finals of season. Wow,
you talk about that man, that could possibly have happened. Yeah,
(11:04):
but what I would dream of doing that for the
last forty five years. About marriage, I mean, can you imagine,
here's this peeded farmer who decides to run for the
Senate and doesn't even mention it to his wife. But
eventually they found the key that made their marriage evolve.
We began to work together as equals. In our business.
(11:28):
I kept our books, and so it was not very
long before I knew on paper more about the work
than he did, and we became partners in and I
began to consultant Rosen before I made any major decisions.
So it was a transformation in a marriage. We'll have
(11:49):
more after a quick break. We're back to our conversation
with former President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalind Carter.
They were described to us how the power dynamic in
(12:11):
their marriage became more balanced in their decades together. But
I was still curious, what was the challenge that was
the toughest for them to overcome when we try to
write a book together. So we all be careful. That's true.
That was the biggest challenge to our marriage book. But
(12:32):
we started writing the book and we decided I would
write one chapter and that she would write the next one,
and we would swop chapters and edit each other. But
basically we had a different writing style. I write very rapidly.
I read thirty four books at all, you know, I
write very rapidly and Rosen doesn't. So I would write
(12:55):
my chapter and give me the Rosen to edit, and
she would book to put it as a rough draft,
but when she finished a chapter it was like she
had been about side of and God had given us
heard this prescious tech vault and stone and if I
changed wouldn't word in it it because up serious distress.
(13:18):
So we had a we soon old. We soon decided
that we would give Peter Osenos you know, uh they're small,
advanced back and uh and forgetting the book real it
was it was breaking up our marriage. We couldn't talk
about it. We couldn't We couldn't even discuss it with
(13:40):
each other. We just wrote out their letters back and
forth on the word process. But we would agree on
ninety the tile ninety seven percent of the road, but
the three percent we didn't agree on because there's something happened.
I might have thought it was humorous and she might
have thought it was very serious. So Peter Osenos came
down the planes and I had the things, and said,
(14:05):
I hate for you to give up this book because
it has a good potential, And I said, okay. So
he he went down throughout the book and filed out
the paragraphs on which we couldn't agree completely, so he
divided them up. He gave half the paragraphs to me
and has the other half of paragraphs to Rosen. You
knew and in the book it had a Even when
(14:28):
they printed up the book, Peter, I wasn't put an
r by Rose's paragraphs on a jay by my paragraph
And so when when I had a paragraph, I could
write the filer version of Rose couldn't. He couldn't change it,
and vice versa. So we saved the book and it
was hard. It always broke up your marriage. The biggest
(14:49):
surprise for me here in the short term we've had
is I think you're a feminist. Well, I'm always thought
I was, But Jimmy has always thought I could do
anything always, and so I campaigned all over the country.
I mean, U, I've done things I never dreamed I
(15:10):
could do. And and we've done things together, like we
took down her skiing lessons when he was sixty two
and hours fifty nine. I mean, we started skiing agents.
He doesn't only want to learn about things, he wants
to do them because that we're doing birth watching him
with all kinds of stuff together, and it's just been had.
(15:35):
Things happened to us, like living in a dream, Yeah,
because of him, Because he just had confidence that I
could do anything. Yeah, yeah, and so they gave me
confidence that I could do it. If you could give
advice to a couple to married already or about to
be married, what would you say that would maybe help them?
(16:00):
I would say, give each other plenty of space and
do your own thing. Fine. They used to do together
and try to reconcilid the end of every day, which
means you have to communicate with each other. What about you, Wilson? Then,
I think that I went so long from being then
(16:21):
doing what he said, and we really had to work
at it a little bit, you know, to make it
so that it was all right for me to do
what I wanted to do and him to do what
he wanted to do. And we still care for each other, right,
that's the most important thing. It wasn't my life, and
I think probably Jimmy's too. For you to finally be
(16:42):
who you wanted to be. That's former President Jimmy Carter
and First Lady Rosalind Carter. I loved hearing how they
grew together. An inspiring couple and a true honor to
be with them. Until next time. I'm Phil Donahue and
I'm Marlow Thomas Oh It's been great. I Thank you,
(17:06):
Thank You. Double Data is a production of Pushkin Industries.
The show was created by US and produced by Sarah Lilly.
Michael Bahari is associate producer. Musical adaptations of It Had
to Be You by Sellwagen, Simfinette, Marlo and I are
executive producers, along with Mia Lobell and Letal Molad from Pushkin.
(17:31):
Special thanks to Jacob Wiseburg, Malcolm Gladwell, Heather Faine, John Snars,
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