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When Lillian Carter
decided to join the Peace Corps at age 67, the Corps asked her to undergo
a psychiatric evaluation. She was asked to explain why a well-off Southern
widow, whose son was running for governor of Georgia, was volunteering
to serve dark-skinned people in the stifling Indian heat.
In her own words, Miss Lillian was just taking the Corps advertising campaign
at face valueage is no barrier. Had she been 40 years
younger, she would have been labeled a social activist. No one would have
questioned her motives.
In 1966, the psychiatric evaluation was straightforward enough: Miss Lillian
was exorcising her demons of white guilt over Southern race relations.
Nevertheless, she was sent to New Delhi and then on to a colony about
30 miles outside of Bombay, where she worked as a family planner and nurse
in the local clinic for the next two years.
Life in Plains
Miss Lillian had already led a life of service as a registered nurse in
the southwest Georgia community of Plains. Joining the Corps was a logical
extension of her seemingly endless compassion and need for activity.
In 1920, when a young Bessie Lillian Gordy was accepted as a nurse trainee
at Wise Sanitarium, she eagerly left her post office job in Richland,
Georgia, for a career in Plains. Soon after, she met her future husband,
Earl Carter, and became engaged. Miss Lillian was ready to quit her training,
but at Earls insistence, she left Plains, completed her six months
of training at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, and sat for her board exams.
Earl sent her engagement ring by way of a Plains doctor visiting Atlanta.
It was a good thing she followed Earls advice. During the lean years
of the Depression, when farm goods werent demanding much of a price,
Miss Lillians wages as a registered nurse helped their young family
survive.
Miss Lillian continued to nurse after the financial necessity had passed.
While raising a family and enjoying the beginnings of prosperity, she
worked at Wise and later as a private duty nurse. In An Hour Before
Daylight (Simon & Schuster, 2001), former US President Jimmy Carter
remembers the type of nursing his mother practiced:
Since we lived several miles from town among neighbors who were very
poor and whose best transportation, if any, was a mule and wagon, my mother
cared for many of them almost as a doctor, often providing both diagnosis
and treatment. There may have been other nurses who did this, but I never
heard of it. Mama was a special person, who refused to acknowledge most
racial distinctions and spent many hours with our black neighbors. She
never charged them anything for her help, but they would usually bring
her what they could afforda shoat, some chickens, a few dozen eggs,
or perhaps blackberries or chestnuts.
Beyond Bombay
Having witnessed their mothers call to service their entire lives,
none of Miss Lillians four children were surprised when she announced
her intention to join the Peace Corps. After three months of training
at the University of Chicago and more than 24 hours of travel, on December
22, 1966, Miss Lillian wrote home:
This is our position: we are in the Peace Corps, under the Indian Government,
and working in Family Planning for Godrej Industries. The Godrej Colony
is about thirty miles from Bombay. There are no stores here, Godrej is
an industrial complex, with all types of factories, and they have their
own health program, cooking classes, school, gymnasiumeverything
except white people. (Away from Home: Letters to My Family, Simon
& Schuster, 1977)
Seeking out where her skills would be most appreciated, Miss Lillian eventually
found herself working tirelessly at Dr. Bhatias clinic, where she
saw human suffering unlike anything in Plains. She confronted leprosy
and an attitude toward life and death brought about by the extremes of
disease and poverty that left her deeply disturbed. Her letters home repeatedly
mention a leper woman left on the side of the road to die. Miss Lillians
pleas for help were answered with the admonishment that the woman was
of no concern to her.
Her desire to treat people with equality and dignity was challenged again
and again during her time in India. On May 30, 1967, she wrote home:
Dr. Bhatia warned me again today that Im getting too wrapped
up in the patients. He said I am the kindest person some of them have
ever known, simply because I treat them all alike. He also told me that
sometimes he wished I hadnt come to India, because when I leave,
so many could not understand. (Away from Home: Letters to My Family)
Reminders of home
Miss Lillian was acutely aware that by treating everyone the same,
she was pushing the envelope. Though the material and cultural surroundings
were different in Godrej, the strict caste system that Miss Lillian observed
in India was not dissimilar from life for blacks and whites in segregated
Plains. Just as the residents of Godrej worked and lived on the land of
Mr. Godrej, dependent on him for basic services, black tenant farmers
and day laborers worked the land on the Carter familys farms and
kept accounts at the Carter Commissary and the Plains Mercantile Company.
An extraordinary woman, Miss Lillian had an irrepressible spirit that
saw her through the most heart-wrenching times in India, when she felt
furthest away from home. In the words of her son Jimmy, she was a true
adventurer who grew in spirit and influence all her life. She returned
to Georgia shortly after her 70th birthday, a woman who saw and served
more of the world than most of her generation.
Editors note: Three years after Miss Lillians death in
1983, the Atlanta Regional Office of the Peace Corps established The Lillian
Carter Award, presented every five years to recognize volunteers age 50
and older for outstanding service. Her concern for others also lives on
through the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing, dedicated
to improving the health of vulnerable people worldwide.
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