Early Life
Carter was born in Plains, Georgia, the eldest of the four children of Allie M. Smith (1905–2000), a dressmaker, and Wilburn Edgar Smith (1896–1940), an automobile mechanic and farmer. Her brothers were William Jerrold "Jerry" Smith (engineer, 1929–2003) and Murray Lee Smith (teacher and minister, 1932–2003) and her sister is Lillian Allethea Smith Wall (born 1936).
Her father died of leukemia when she was 13 and she helped her mother to raise her younger siblings, as well as to assist in the dressmaking business in order to meet the family's financial obligations. Carter graduated as valedictorian of Plains High School and then attended Georgia Southwestern College.
Read more about this topic: Rosalynn Carter
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