Celebrating 99 Years: Jimmy Carter to Spend His Birthday with Family at His Georgia Home

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — On Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter will celebrate his 99th birthday with his wife, Rosalynn, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The gathering will take place in the same one-story structure where the Carters lived before he was first elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962.

The party was moved up a day to ensure it wouldn’t be canceled by a potential federal government shutdown that Congress narrowly averted Saturday evening with a deal sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.

The 39th president was celebrated Saturday at his presidential library and museum ahead of his 99th birthday. The year was 1924, and that tiny fellow in Plains was James Earl Carter Jr., known as “Jimmy” from the start. And a baby in rural Georgia became the first future American president born in a hospital.

J. Edgar Hoover became the federal government’s top cop. But the former president will break routine Sunday, putting off his practice of quietly watching church services online to instead celebrate his 99th birthday with his family.

For Carter’s family, it’s an opportunity to honor a personal legacy. “The remarkable piece to me and I think to my family is that while my grandparents have accomplished so much, they have really remained the same sort of South Georgia couple that lives in a 600-person village where I think of him as a man who did so much to help […]” said grandson Jason Carter.