Tributes have poured in from across the country and around the world after news emerged last week that former President Jimmy Carter, 98, has begun home hospice care.
One such demonstration is taking place right in Carter’s beloved home town of Plains, Georgia — tie-dye peace signs to honor the former president’s legacy of spreading harmony worldwide.
And the artist behind the tribute? Jimmy Carter’s niece, LeAnne Smith.
“When I think about Uncle Jimmy, I kind of think about the peace sign,” Smith told Spectrum News. “Because he is so active in global peace.”
“The [Camp David] Accords, the Nobel Peace Prize, just all the things he's done everywhere to try to make people live together in unity and have empathy for each other,” she continued, adding: “I just thought it's kind of an appropriate time and symbol to go up with him in hospice care.”
Smith has called Plains home her entire life. Her father is former First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s brother, and she lives in the home they grew up in.
Smith said that her childhood was filled with visits to Georgia’s Governor’s Mansion.
“We were young, 8 or 10 years old, we hitched a ride to Atlanta,” Smith told Spectrum News. “We’d call and say, ‘Can we come to the Governor’s Mansion?’ And they were always open to it.”
She also recalled attending President Carter’s inauguration in 1977, when she was in middle school.
While he’s known as former President Carter by millions worldwide for his accomplishments, both during his one term in the White House and in his four decade post-presidency, to Smith, he’s “Uncle Jimmy.”
“Well, to us, he’s just a normal person,” she said. You see him he's in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, and he hurts and he fishes and he does all the normal things that normal people in the south, from the country on a rural town do.”
Smith called former President Carter a "role model," praising his morals and his lengthy marriage to Rosalynn Carter.
"I'm very proud of him," Smith said. "I think about this time in his life and he's lived to be 98, and [Rosalynn Carter] 95, and them being together 76 years and never seen one without the other and just their testimony as to what a marriage is."
Smith is hoping to raise money for a memorial to former President Carter in Plains, and that a percentage of proceeds from selling these peace signs will go toward that tribute.
"We are hoping to fund a sculpture tribute memorial for Uncle Jimmy that will show all aspects of his legacy," Smith said. "It will have things about Habitat for Humanity, the Guinea worm [disease] from Africa, the [Camp David Accords], global peace, trying to have peace throughout the world. Just anything we can think about that's part of his legacy."
"Since it hit the news, I've had about 75 orders," she added. "So I guess I'll be real busy in my backyard spray painting peace signs for the next I don't know how long!"
Smith says former President Carter is doing well in hospice care, noting that while the family is prepared to say goodbye, they are also hopeful he may rebound.
"I've heard he's had a few good days," she said, adding: "He is Jimmy Carter, he might be here two more years, three more years, he might make it to 100!"