Rosalynn Carter and me: A kind gesture remembered

The tributes that honored former First Lady Rosalynn Carter after her recent death reminded me of my own long-ago encounter with Mrs. Carter’s legendary kindness. It happened 43 years ago, in 1980, when I was a rookie reporter at a big-city daily newspaper in Ohio.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter was running for re-election, and my city was a frequent stop for campaigning politicians. When I heard that Rosalynn Carter was coming to visit a local nonprofit organization and hold a press conference there, I asked the city editor to let me go. He shook his head. One of the newspaper’s veteran reporters was covering it, he said, a white-haired, no-nonsense, fearless woman I’ll call Earlene.

That wasn’t her real name, and, anyway, behind her back, the newspaper staff had another name for her. We called her “Ma Barker” – and for good reason. In her many, many years at the paper, she had covered just about every kind of hard news story in the history of news stories. She was actually a nice person – unless she was focused on nailing down every detail of a crime or scandalous incident – or political event. Then, God help you if you bothered her.

She was my hero, and I was in awe of her. And also terrified of accidentally crossing her.

I promised the city editor I would stay out of Earlene’s way. I just wanted to see what an event with the national press corps was like. He rolled his eyes and said OK but warned me not to get in Earlene’s way or do anything to annoy her. When he told her I was coming along, she grimaced with a “What the heck?” kind of gesture and walked away. It was the look you give your mom when she insists you have to take your kid sister along on a movie date with friends.

The news conference was to be held in a rather small room, like a classroom. I got there early and parked myself near the windows at the back, as far as possible from where Earlene and the local press were setting up at the front of the room. But to the shock of the local reporters, when the big-shot national press people came pouring in, instead of joining the locals at the front of the room, they quickly swarmed toward the back of the room and set up their microphones just a few feet away from . . . me. 

Glancing over my shoulder, I could see Earlene, her face red in frustration, trying to get to the front of the pack with the other local reporters who were frantically moving their microphones and other equipment. The national reporters immediately began asking questions as soon as Mrs. Carter walked into the room. 

I had brought along a pen and notebook, of course, along with my press pass, and I stood there with the national reporters, trying to look legit while feeling Earlene’s eyes boring into my back and realizing that neither she nor our local wire service colleague had gotten a question in. Then, in what seemed like only a couple of minutes, someone called out, “Thank you!” and the First Lady headed toward the door.

She walked right by me, and I seized that moment to take a timid step forward and quietly ask her the question the wire service guy had told me beforehand that he wanted to ask privately, if possible. He didn’t want our competition to overhear her answer. But he hadn’t gotten to ask his question. So I asked it. And I was stunned when Mrs. Carter actually paused a moment to smile and answer. 

Meanwhile, Earlene had finally managed to get closer, calling out, “Mrs. Carter! Mrs. Carter!” Earlene jostled up against me amid the flurry of everyone packing up and getting ready to leave the room. Ignoring that swirl of momentary chaos, Mrs. Carter calmly continued answering my question. But at that exact, unfortunate, discombobulated moment, the wire spiral on my reporter’s notebook somehow got hung on a loop in Earlene’s loose-knit (probably expensive) sweater. Then, as I tugged on my notebook so I could write down Mrs. Carter’s answer, a long, red, ugly snag of yarn came with it. Horrified, I let go of the notebook.

So there I stood, emptyhanded, smiling and nodding as Mrs. Carter spoke to me. Since my notebook was hanging on Earlene’s chest, I had nothing to write on as she graciously answered the question the wire service reporter had wanted to ask. To be honest, after all these years I can’t remember the question – something about the Youngstown steel mills – and I really wasn’t listening all that carefully to her answer because, behind me, Ma Barker was sputtering and hissing about my notebook that now dangled down to about her waist. Also, she was possibly about to explode because, through my improbable bumbling, I had managed to ask a question and she hadn’t. 

In my memory, it was truly a monumental moment: the extraordinary experience of having the First Lady of the United States talk to me while, behind me, a furiously flogging woman was having an unsuccessfully restrained hissy fit. 

Then Mrs. Carter smiled again and continued on her way, escorted by some bigwig officials for a tour of the nonprofit facility. Earlene and I stayed behind long enough to remove my notebook from her sweater. She was ominously quiet as I muttered, “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Then she stomped off after the rest of the pack, trying to tuck the long loop of yarn back into the snag’s big hole in her sweater as she went.

I sat alone on the windowsill in the press conference room, morosely trying to recall enough of Mrs. Carter’s answer to the steel-mills question to jot down a few notes for our wire service colleague. But it was useless. All I could hear in my short-term memory was Earlene’s huffing, puffing and sputtering as I ruined her sweater – and possibly my reporting career – while the embarrassing scene had played out. 

I looked up when I heard footsteps and saw a well-dressed woman walking into the room. I knew she was part of Mrs. Carter’s traveling group, and my heart pounded as I prepared myself for . . . well, I had no idea what she would say to me, but I knew she wasn’t going to commend me for my poise and note-taking skill.

She told me her name and said Mrs. Carter had asked her to find me and make sure I had understood her answer. “You seemed  a little distracted,” she said with a kind smile. Then she handed me her business card. She was Mrs. Carter’s press secretary.

She went over Mrs. Carter’s answer to the steel-mills question as I carefully wrote in my notebook – the one with the wire spiral now stretched out like a satellite antenna. 

I thanked her, and she walked away. When she’d left, I looked at her business card again – and realized she’d actually handed me two cards, stacked together. The other business card was Mrs. Carter’s.

It was such a kind gesture. Mrs. Carter had sent her press secretary back to find a young, nervous, rookie reporter and make sure the struggling bumbler got what she needed. 

I’ve been forever grateful to Mrs. Carter since that day. Last month, listening to and reading all the tributes about her extraordinary way of making everyone feel special, I felt a kind of kinship with all those others who had experienced the former First Lady’s thoughtfulness. I got out the photo album where I’d saved her business card 43 years ago and smiled, thinking, Yes, she was kind to me too.