Nurse and mother[edit]
Carter was born Bessie Lillian Gordy on August 15, 1898, in
Richland, Georgia, to James Jackson Gordy (1863–1948) and Mary Ida Nicholson Gordy (1871–1951). She was the niece of Berry Gordy I, who was the paternal half-brother of James Jackson Gordy and the grandfather of
Motown Records founder
Berry Gordy.
[1] She volunteered to serve as a nurse with the U.S. Army in 1917 but the program was cancelled. Instead, she worked for the US Post Office at Richland before moving to
Plains, Georgia in 1920 where she was accepted as a trainee at the
Wise Sanitarium before completing her nursing degree at the
Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Atlanta, Georgia in 1923. Lillian's family initially disapproved of her choice of a career in nursing, but she continued her training and became very successful, earning the respect of both the black and white communities. "Miss Lillian", as she was often known, allowed black people to enter her home through the front door, rather than through the back door as was the social norm, and would often have them in her living room for casual conversation just as she would a white neighbor. These conversations would even continue after her husband Earl was to arrive home expecting the guests to depart.
Lillian Carter said that the strongest influence on her
liberal views was her father. James Jackson Gordy, operated a
Post Office in Lillian's hometown of
Richland and was always cordial and often dined with the black workers. It was very unusual in the early 20th century but Lillian decided that she would follow her father's example.
She met businessman
James Earl Carter and married him immediately after her graduation. The couple had four children:
Jimmy (born 1924),
Gloria (1926–1990),
Ruth (1929–1983), and
Billy (1937–1988). While she theoretically retired from nursing in 1925, in reality she worked as what was then called a
nurse practitioner both for the hundreds of employees back in her husband's businesses and for members of the Plains community. While a religious woman, Carter was not a regular attender of church services. After some sisters at the local church organized a
mission trip to Africa, Carter became upset saying that there was plenty to be done in the US before traveling to another country. She coordinated her own Bible study at home on Sunday mornings while the rest of the family attended church.
After the death of her husband from
pancreatic cancer, Lillian Carter left for Auburn University where she assumed the role of housemother of Kappa Alpha Order, a fraternity of 100 members at the time. She served in that role from 1956 to 1962.
[2] A year after completing her service at Auburn, Carter managed a nursing home in Blakely, Georgia.
Carter later became a
social activist, working for
desegregation and providing medical care to African-Americans in Plains, Georgia.
