What We Know About Jimmy Carter's Burial Plans

Considered among the greatest former presidents in U.S. history, America's 39th President, Jimmy Carter, was closely associated with the state of Georgia. In the White House from 1977 through 1981, early on in Carter's life, he worked in the family peanut farming business before serving as Georgia's governor in the early 1970s. After his time in politics, including a stint with the Georgia senate, Carter returned to Plains, Georgia, his small hometown of only a few hundred residents roughly 150 miles south of Atlanta. Plains is where Carter was born in 1924 and near where the Carter family peanut farm is located, according to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

With the February 2023 announcement that Carter and his wife, the former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, had chosen hospice care for the beloved politician and humanitarian, extended members of the Carter family gathered in Plains to be near the former president in his final days, NBC News reported. But as the former president lived out his final days, it was announced his wife was joining him in hospice care on November 17, 2023. She died two days later on November 19, and was buried on the couple's residential property in Plains, where President Carter told C-SPAN in 2006 he and Rosalynn planned to be laid to rest together. Carter died on December 29, 2024.

"Plains is special to us," Carter said. "I could be buried in Arlington Cemetery or wherever I want, but my wife was born here and I was born here ... Plains is where our heart has always been."

Former President Jimmy Carter went on to tell C-SPAN that the couple's ancestors were born in the area in the 1700s, so their history in the town runs deep. As the Associated Press reported in 2007 (via the Ocala StarBanner), with the establishment of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn donated much of their historic property in Plains, Georgia, as well as his childhood home in Archery, Georgia, just a few miles from the small town. These properties serve as a major tourist attraction in the area, where residents still call Carter "Mr. Jimmy," and where Carter continued to attend church services and teach Sunday school until late in life. In Plains, Carter and his wife also helped launch an antique mall and historic inn.

After the deaths of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, their 1960s-built home in Plains was also to become part of the historic site, per the Park Service agreement. On Carter's loyalty to his hometown and the economic benefit the Carter historic site provides to the region — an estimated 85,000 people visit Plains each year for that reason — Plains Bed & Breakfast owner Jill Stuckey told the A.P., "[Carter] knows this will make Plains a tourist attraction for eternity." 

In light of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's continued loyalty to their home in Plains, residents may be comforted to know that after a funeral service in Washington, and a viewing in Atlanta, the Carters will always be a part of their town. According to Fox5, the burial spot is in view of the couple's front porch, nuzzled near a willow tree by the edge of a pond where the couple spent time together fly-fishing. 

But Carter's absence is sure to be felt in the small community. On the news that Carter had entered hospice, Plains resident Philip Kurland told The Atlantic Journal-Constitution, "It feels like I'm losing part of me." And on the value of Plains in Carter's life, his niece LeAnn Smith added, "[Plains] has always been his safe place ... He knew he could come home and go back to the house he built in 1961 and get away from everything." A well-known peanut statue was hurriedly repainted as the town's population knew that the world's eyes would soon be upon their burg once again. "It's just so typical of Uncle Jimmy," Smith told The Washington Post. "It's home. He could be buried anywhere. He could have lived anywhere. He came back to Plains."

As the Carter family gathered in Plains, main street businesses joined with visitors to pay tribute to the politician and most famous resident. Without Carter, Kurland said Plains just won't feel the same, but added, " ... I think there will be a feeling of joy because every time I think of him it'll put a smile on my face," Kurland said.