Lillian Carter Center
for International Nursing

Plains, GA—Folks around here know her as “Miss Lillian,” the silver-haired matriarch of the Carter family. To people across the country she has become known as the mother of Jimmy Carter, Democratic nominee for President.             

In addition, this spirited lady is something else: a registered nurse.

Recently Mrs. Lillian Carter talked with The American Nurse about her nursing background and experiences. Speaking in a firm voice tempered by a soft Georgia accent, she discussed her life with candor and humor.

Miss Lillian is 78 years old (a fact she offers without being asked) and still going strong. Trained as a registered nurse more than half a century ago, she has reared four children, practiced nursing and operated a nursing home. At 68 years of age she went to India as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Three years ago the Georgia State Nurses’ Association awarded Lillian Carter a Certificate of Recognition for her contribution to nursing through her Peace Corps service and her concern for nursing’s interests as a member of the Georgia Board of Human Resources.

“On many occasions she would ask us for advice, the issues we were interested in and how the board could be responsive to the needs of nurses,” recalled Kathryn Chance, GSNA president in 1973. “She is an outstanding woman, a fantastic woman.

At Home in Plains

Lillian Carter’s home is this southwest Georgia village of 683 persons. Near the “business district” is an old railroad depot, lately reopened as a campaign office. Here she settled back in a rocking chair to tell her story.

“I signed up to be a nurse when the Army was asking for nurses,” she began. “That was in 1917 and I was very patriotic. The day the armistice was signed I received a letter of acceptance. Immediately the Army did away with the program.”

Determined to become a nurse, Miss Lillian applied to a small hospital school in Plains, despite family opposition. “In those days nurses were not like they are now,” she said referring to her family’s objections. “Nurses made little money and were not highly thought of as they are now.”

Although most of her preparation was acquired in Plains, it was completed in 1923 at Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing, Atlanta, with special training in “women’s diseases, gynecology and children.”

“They (Grady) didn’t claim me until Jimmy became governor of Georgia.” Miss Lillian added with amusement. “You know how it is—like having a lot of first cousins I didn’t know I had. But that’s human nature.”

Shortly after graduation she marred James Earl Carter, Sr., but continued to nurse in private duty. Her husband, she pointed out, didn’t mind her nursing as long as she was home at night. “But that was impossible then. I did 20-hour duty a day. Do you know what we were paid? Six dollars.”

Community Nurse

Miss Lillian “retired” from active employment as a nurse in 1925. Practically speaking, however, her nursing career was far from over. For years to come she provided free nursing care to employees on the Carter family farms and to other residents in the community around Plains. The southwest Georgia farm country, like rural areas elsewhere in the nation, suffered from shortage of health care providers. In modern terms Miss Lillian would be considered as a source of primary care for her community and regarded as an early nurse practitioner.

“We had about 200 blacks working on my family’s farms,” she commented. “I would nurse them when they were sick.”

A case that stands out in her memory is the nursing care provided to a 14-year-old girl from a poor family 60 miles from Plains. The child had a ruptured appendix, bowel obstruction and later pneumonia. “I nursed her until she died,” Miss Lillian recalled.

Caring for the girl through weeks of illness was one of the most moving experiences of Lillian Carter’s life. “When I would lean over to speak to her she would grab me around the neck and pull me close. She loved me like anything in the world and I learned to love her.”

The girl’s family was so poor that her mother could not visit her because she had no decent clothes. However, to cheer up the patient, Miss Lillian’s husband would bring the Carter children to the hospital window to wave to the young patient. Carter also brought medicine for her and later the dress she was buried in.

Two months after the girl’s death her father, who worked in a turpentine mill and received “very poor wages,” sent Miss Lillian a pickup truck load of turpentine chips to be used for kindling fires. “I felt badly to be paid anything but that was his way of doing what he could for me,” she remarked. “Those chips were great. You strike a match to them and it’s instant blaze. We lived in the country and burned logs in the fireplace.”

Her nursing background was also useful in rearing her own family. Once she nursed Jimmy when he was two years old and “very, very ill” with colitis. “It wasn’t an epidemic but many children died from colitis in those days (1926),” Miss Lillian noted.

To treat him she followed a suggestion from a country doctor from Montezuma, GA. The therapy involved a saturated solution of cornstarch administered as a retention enema.

“And in two weeks he was completely healed,” Miss Lillian declared. “Later, whenever a child—black or white—had colitis, the doctor called me and said, “Would you show them (the parents) what to do?” The treatment was the greatest thing that ever happened.”

Lillian Carter’s concern for people has always extended beyond race—which sometimes distressed others in the community. Described as an integrationist, she replied: “I am and that’s enough.”

However, she could not help discussing the subject after some prompting. Amy, her 8-year-old granddaughter whom she adores, attends an integrated school in Plains, which had 19 black children and 5 white in her beginning class. “She loves it and doesn’t know the difference between black and white. That is what I strive to teach her fully.”

Miss Lillian noted that racial attitudes in the South have changed drastically in her lifetime. “I was the only integrationist in town. For a while people didn’t think much of me and now they are glad they know me.”

Change of Pace

                Her life assumed a new direction after her husband died of cancer in 1953. Leaving Plains, which offered little social life for a widow, she went to Auburn University in Alabama where she spent seven and a half years as a fraternity housemother. “I never did get a night’s sleep,” she quipped.

                After returning to Plains for a year she became restless again. Miss Lillian then accepted an offer by a friend to operate a 25-bed nursing home in Blakely, GA. “I was the administrator as well as head nurse,” she commented about her 18-month association with the nursing home where she “did everything.” She also devised her own formula for running a successful nursing home.

“I hired two registered nurses and one licensed practical nurse to take over 8-hour shifts,” Miss Lillian explained. “The LPN was on duty the same time I was. Medication was given only by registered nurses. When the licensed practical nurse was there I gave the medication myself.”

With her down-home common sense approach to matters, Miss Lillian insisted that a person bringing in a patient for admission to the nursing home must sign a paper agreeing that someone would visit the patient at least once a week. “That was a good idea,” she stated.

The policy failed only one time when the sister of a patient did not want to visit her for two weeks. Miss Lillian telephoned the woman to inform her that an ambulance was taking her sister home. “Oh my, please no,” the woman replied. “I scared her and never had any more trouble,” Miss Lillian noted.

To the Peace Corps

                The ingenuity of this remarkable woman also helped to overcome barriers of language and culture in India where she served as a Peace Corps volunteer for 21 months. She described an incident in which she won over small children of factory workers during her work in a clinic.

                As soon as the children were brought into the clinic, they began to cry. “I always had some hard candy balls in my pocket. As soon as the children started crying I’d stick a candy ball in their mouths. The next day their mothers would tell me that the children wanted to come back. So they came by in droves even though they were supposed to go to another clinic.”

                She applied for Peace Corps service after seeing and advertisement stating that age was no barrier. “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for it,” Miss Lillian declared about her time in India. “What I did was help people who didn’t have anything. I’m not quoting the Bible because I don’t know it that well, but it says that when you do something for somebody you get it back a hundred fold. I got it back a thousand fold.”

                On arrival to India she began her service in a family planning program. Soon afterwards she was asked to provide nursing care at a clinic near Bombay serving 5,000 factory workers and their families. At the clinic she worked with an Indian physician who saw 200 to 300 patients a day. “From the first day there, I knew that this was where I needed to be,” Miss Lillian said.

                She added that it took some effort to gain the trust of the patients and even the doctor. “He frankly told me he believed I was with the CIA.”

                In one instance her success in convincing a patient to let her give him an insulin injection created a reputation for Miss Lillian as the “insulin expert.” The key to her success was simple: she obtained a needle shorter than those used routinely in the clinic. “I showed the man a short needle and this persuaded him. He told everybody I was an expert.”

“Soon I had my own clinic,” she joked. “The doctor said, ‘What did you do to that man?’ and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know; it’s my charm.’”

More Government Service

                On her return to Georgia, Miss Lillian was appointed by her son—then governor—to the Georgia Board of Human Resources, which has jurisdiction over state health and welfare programs. “Jimmy admires the fact I am a nurse as much as anything on earth.”

                Has her being a nurse influenced her son’s views on health care issues? All she would say was, “I’m sure it ahs some weight.”

                Although she no longer practices nursing, Lillian Carter still maintains her license as a registered nurse. “Nursing has meant so much to me,” she said. Looking back on a long and worthwhile nursing career, she added: “Once a nurse you are always a nurse. Nothing can take some things away from you.”

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