Geneva Idlette of Hartford grew up in Americus, Georgia, and has fond memories of Jimmy Carter — long before he became president in 1977.
Close friends and family call her “Gen.” She's 91 years old and her memory is long.
Both of her parents died when she was a young child. She and her siblings went to live with their aunt. They worked on local farms and did manual labor to make ends meet.
At a young age, she picked cotton, vegetables, and she said she did a wide range of work on local farms, including on occasion the Carter family farm in Plains, Georgia.
Decades later, she recalls some of the work she performed and being greeted by Carter’s mother, Lillian.
“We’d go maybe to work to grate peanuts or something like that … She’d say 'y'all come on in' and that's how she talked southern and they were so friendly. And they gave us a little bag of peanuts and a slice of pecan pie. And we would be on our way,” she said.
She says Jimmy Carter was always kind and good spirited.
“He was nice; we call it down to earth. He was calm. Speak to you nice, that old country brogue,” she said.
Carter’s father, Earl, was a segregationist, according to officials at the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Farm, but the future president was a supporter of integration.
Idlette recalled a day when word spread in the area that he had made it known in a Georgia church that only catered to whites.
“He was speaking in the pulpit, so he looked out and didn’t see any Blacks out there, so Jimmy Carter puts his Bible under his arm and he walks out. And said 'when y'all get it integrated, I’ll come back,'” she said.
Carter was known for his strong stance against segregation.
As an upperclassman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Carter defended Wesley A. Brown from brutal hazing. Brown was the Naval Academy’s first Black midshipman, who later went on to become a Naval lieutenant commander.
In a commencement speech at the academy, Carter said he encouraged Brown not to quit. Carter also indicated it was his first “personal experience with total integration,” according to The New York Times.
Idlette said terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan was unfortunately a part of the Jim Crow South. When she was 10 years old, she recalled seeing a young Jimmy, around the age of 18, stand up to the Klan when they approached his family’s property.
“One day we were going up there and we saw these white horses with the sheets over their heads and they were standing at the edge of the woods with them horses and Carter came out and waved his hand and they disappeared,” she said.
Carter, a Democrat, grew up to become a Georgia state senator and governor. He became president at the age of 52.
At that time, Idlette and her children were living in Hartford. She said she was amazed to learn Carter had won the race for president.
“When I got up here, he became the president. I said 'Oh my God, Jimmy Carter. Little Jimmy Carter,'” she said.
Carter was later honored with several awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Nobel Peace Prize and World War II Victory medal.
Idlette said Carter was always kind and compassionate. She reflected on his life and her own.
“Treat people nice,” she said. “I wonder now how people can walk by and not say good morning. You’re alive; you’re breathing, you know?”
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