Apologies for a second blog on the Carter Presidential Centre but Mike and I are now in Stone Mountain, Georgia (about 20 miles from Atlanta) and we are being pummeled by a very slow-moving storm. It has barely stopped raining, heavily, since Thursday accompanied by thunderstorms and lightening which are wreaking havoc with Miss Poppy’s beauty sleep (and ours too).

We are in the most beautiful campground we have ever stayed in but the weather has prevented us venturing out to explore the famous Stone Mountain and its carving which has, thus far, been hiding in cloud cover. Finger’s crossed the rain will stop soon and I can get out and take a photo or two.

Back to the blog ….

Unlike any other first lady before or since, Rosalynn Carter, wife of President Jimmy Carter, regularly attended cabinet meetings to stay current on the nation’s business. She remained her husband’s closest advisor on subjects from domestic politics to international diplomacy, and accepted tasks from the president to help him govern.

She managed the social and ceremonial business of the White House and brought a full agenda of her own to her position of first lady.

After helping her husband become Governor of Georgia in 1970, Mrs. Carter decided to focus her attention on the field of mental health when she was the state’s First Lady. It was a commitment that she continues today.

In 1988, the Mental Illness Foundation honoured Rosalynn Carter with the Dorothea Dix Award for her decades of work on behalf of people with mental illness. Dix was a pioneer in lobbying for humane mental health treatment.