Gloria Carter Spann - Early Years

Early Years

Gloria Carter was the second of four children born to James Earl Carter, Sr. and Lillian Gordy Carter and was 24 months younger than her brother, Jimmy. By many accounts, Gloria was the smartest, most attractive, most outgoing, and most talented of the Carter children. As children competing for the affections of their parents, the relationship between Spann and the future President was somewhat strained but the two grew extremely close in their later years. Her brother Jimmy shot her with a BB gun after she threw a wrench at him when they were children.

Carter graduated from high school in June 1944 and enrolled in Georgia Southwestern College where she began to study journalism. Her plans were deferred when she eloped in December 1945, marrying a war hero named William Everett Hardy from Americus. The Carters disapproved of the match, as the groom was a former drug store clerk. This was not a suitable job for the well-to-do families at the time. The marriage produced a son, William Everett (Hardy) (1946-1997). Gloria returned to Georgia in 1949 from Texas, and her father, Earl Carter, was upset by the brutal beatings Gloria suffered at the hands of her husband. With the help of her father, Gloria had her marriage annulled in 1949. On December 15, 1950, Carter-Hardy married Walter Spann, a farmer from Webster County, Georgia and he adopted the son of her first marriage. Walter and Gloria Spann produced no children of their own together, but the marriage lasted almost 40 years, until her death.