First Lady Rosalynn Carter has died

The center announced Friday that the former first lady was receiving hospice care at her home in Plains, Georgia. Rosalyn was previously diagnosed with dementia.

Jimmy Carter was diagnosed with liver and brain cancer in 2015, and has been receiving end-of-life care at home since February.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married for more than 77 years.

“She guided me with her wisdom and encouraged me when I needed it,” Jimmy Carter said in the statement. “As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I knew there was always someone who would love and support me.”

In addition to Jimmy Carter, she has four children, eleven grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren.

Rosalynn met Jimmy when he was a newborn, when the Carters brought their three-year-old son to meet the new kid on the block.

At the age of thirteen, she lost her father to leukemia, and as the eldest of four children in a poor home, this meant greater responsibility for caring for her siblings – what she later called the end of her childhood.

In 1945, she began dating Jimmy Carter, who was then working at the US Naval Academy. The following year they married.

As First Lady during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981, she took an active role, attending Cabinet meetings at the invitation of her husband. After the couple left the White House, she became an advocate for mental health, among other things.