Jan. 4 (UPI) — The body of former President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. has begun a weeklong funeral procession to Carter’s final resting place in Plains, Ga.
Carter was the nation’s 39th president and died at his home in Plains at age 100 on Dec. 29. He had been in hospice care for an extended period and follows his beloved wife and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter in death.
Carter’s final journey began at 10:15 a.m. EST Saturday when his family met at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., and members of his former Secret Service detail carried his casket to a hearse.
The motorcade will travel through Plains, where Carter was born and lived his entire life, other than when serving in the U.S. Navy from 1946 to 1953 or while residing in the White House and Georgia’s Governor’s Mansion in Atlanta.
The motorcade will stop at Carter’s family farm and possibly other locations in Plains before proceeding to the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta for a moment of silence.
Carter served in the Georgia Senate and one term as the state’s governor before winning the 1976 presidential election on the Democratic Party ticket.
He returned to Plains after losing the 1980 election to Republican Ronald Reagan and established the nonprofit Carter Center in Atlanta, which focuses on humanitarian causes and public health.
The Carter Center will host a funeral service at 4 p.m. EST, and Carter’s body will lie in repose from 7 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Tuesday to give the public an opportunity to pay their final respects.
Carter’s body will travel the U.S. Navy Memorial at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday morning and lie in state from 7 p.m. EST Tuesday through 7 a.m. Thursday.
The motorcade will take Carter’s body to the Washington National Cathedral for a national funeral service on Thursday.
Following the national funeral service, the former president’s body will return to Plains for a private funeral at the Maranatha Baptist Church.
Carter will be buried next to wife Rosalynn at their family farm in Plains. Rosalynn died of natural causes in November 2023.
Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter were married for 77 years and will remain together in death.
