The Spirited Matriarch from Plains

Lillian Carter: 1898-1983

To her son, who grew up to be President, she bequeathed a toothy grin, piercing blue eyes and, as she put it, a “feeling for the underdog.” To the rest of the nation, Lillian Carter—”Miss Lillian,” as she was universally known—passed on a refreshing dose of down-home sass and straightforward irreverence. “There was really nothing outstanding about Jimmy as a boy,” she once said of her successful firstborn, contending that Daughter Gloria, two years younger, was actually the smartest of her brood. And in 1976 she admonished her candidate-son Jimmy to “quit that stuff about never telling a lie.” Lillian Carter, who died of cancer last week at 85, was never inhibited by her role as First Mother. That strength and independence made her one of the nation’s best-loved matriarchs.

If Rose Kennedy produced a clan in which duty and leadership were expected, Miss Lillian expected only, but urgently, that her children be themselves. It had been her way. The fourth of nine children, Bessie Lillian Gordy was born in the southwest Georgia town of Richland, where her postmaster father taught her racial tolerance early on. When the family moved to Plains, Lillian became a nurse, and shocked some neighbors by treating poor blacks as well as whites. She was, she acknowledged, probably “the most liberal woman in the county, maybe the state.” In 1923 she married James

Earl Carter, owner of a local farm-supply store, and set about raising four children.

When her husband died in 1953, not long after being elected to the Georgia legislature, she was asked to succeed him. Too depressed, she said no and later regretted it. But she forged a mid-life revival, working as a fraternity housemother and the manager of a nursing home. Then, at 68, she took literally the claim of a TV ad that “age is no barrier” and joined the Peace Corps. Her two years in India, tending to people afflicted with everything from tuberculosis to leprosy, “meant more to me than any other one thing in my life,” she said.

Miss Lillian contributed to Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign mainly by staying home in Plains and taking care of Granddaughter Amy, whom she called “my heart.” But she also found time for speeches and TV interviews, charming the public with her ingenuous candor. That outspokenness continued after Carter’s election, though her off-the-cuff comments sometimes could be embarrassing to the increasingly beleaguered President. During the Iranian hostage crisis, she blurted that she would like to have the Ayatullah Khomeini assassinated.

Miss Lillian, whose fancies included baseball, TV soap operas and a nightly tot of bourbon, had no regrets when her son was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. “I never did like the White House,” she asserted. “It was boring.” According to those close to her, Miss Lillian’s spirits remained high even after a 1981 mastectomy failed to halt the spread of cancer. But in September, after the death of her daughter Evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton, “she sort of gave up,” said a friend. Miss Lillian’s unpretentious graveside service in Plains—attended by some 300 mourners including such former Carter Administration figures as Hamilton Jordan, Bert Lance and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young—lasted less than four minutes. “Well, that’s what she wanted, short and simple,” commented a neighbor leaving the cemetery. “Yep,” said another. “And she usually got her way.” –

SENTENCED. Frances Bernice Schreuder, 45, New York City socialite, to life in prison for plotting the murder of her millionaire father in 1978; in Salt Lake City. Her son Marc, now 22, testified that she had coaxed him into killing Franklin Bradshaw, 76, so she would not be cut out of his will.

DIED. Leonard Schapiro, 75, influential British expert on Soviet affairs; following a stroke; in London. A professor at the London School of Economics, he wrote The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1959), still considered the definitive exposition of how the party works.

DIED. Farrell Dobbs, 76, Trotskyist and labor leader who designed a key organizing strategy for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; in Pinole, Calif. After being involved in a series of bloody truckers’ strikes in Minneapolis in 1934, Dobbs helped set the union on the road to unifying its local fiefdoms by recruiting long-haul drivers, who had previously been ignored by labor organizers. In 1941, after leaving the Teamsters to work full time for the Socialist Workers Party, he was convicted of advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government and served 16 months in prison. He ran for President on the Socialist Workers ticket four times from 1948 to 1960.

DIED. George Halas, 88, bluff, gruff owner of football’s Chicago Bears; in Chicago. He played briefly as an outfielder with the New York Yankees in 1919, quitting after an injury that did not affect his football skills. A year later he organized, coached and played end for the Decatur Staleys. By 1922 Halas had moved the team to Chicago, renamed it the Bears, and suggested that the fledgling 18-team league he played in be rechristened the National Football League. Three years later, Halas and the N.F.L. hit the big time when he signed the famed Galloping Ghost, Halfback Red Grange, who started drawing sellout crowds five days after his last college game. Tightfisted (at first he collected the tickets himself) and tough-minded (he ran up a 73-0 victory to take the 1940 league title from the Washington Redskins), “Papa Bear” Halas developed an ongoing phalanx of stars including Sid Luckman, Johnny Lujack and Gale Sayers. In his 40-year career as head coach, he earned the N.F.L. record for most victories, with 320 regular-season winning games, and led his team to six of its eight championship titles. “I play to win,” he once remarked. “I shall always play to win. I speak no praise for the good loser, the man who says, ‘Well, I did my best.’ ”

DEATH CONFIRMED. Rick Crudale, 21, Marine lance corporal from West Warwick, R.I., who was pictured on TIME’s Oct. 3 cover “Lebanon: Holding the Line”; of injuries suffered in the terrorist bombing of U.S. troops; in Beirut. Crudale had apparently returned early from leave and was among those sleeping in the Marines’ headquarters at Beirut International Airport when the attack took place. At first he was reported missing, but his death was officially verified last week.