Local people who met President Jimmy Carter reflect on him and his legacy

Even into his late 80s, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was an active part of rebuilding homes in Haiti following a devastating earthquake there, Jerry Monica said.

Monica, the president of Habitat for Humanity of McHenry County, shared his reflections with the Northwest Herald on Carter’s legacy almost two years ago, when it was reported that Carter, already 98, went into hospice care.

James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, died Sunday at the age of 100 in the town where his political life began: Plains, Georgia. Carter outlived his wife, Rosalynn, by just more than a year. She died in November 2023.

The former president did not found Habitat for Humanity, but was closely linked to the nonprofit that builds low-cost houses for U.S. residents.

“He is ... our spokesmodel,” Monica said. “I hope ... at 98 years old to be so active. The love that he had for Habitat ... it is not about us. It is about the people he helped and that we want to help,” Monica said.

Monica met Carter on a 2012 Haiti trip, part of the 29th annual Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project.

“I happened to get on the same plane” chartered to Haiti, Monica said. Carter was “working the aisle like a politician, being engaging.”

Knowing the Carters would be on the trip, Monica brought a copy of one of Carter’s books with him and was able to get it signed while they were on the plane.

Once they got to the compound in Haiti, it was obvious that the work was the point of the trip, too.

He was up and down ladders hammering corrugated tin roofs with a big smile on his face."

—  Jerry Monica, president of Habitat for Humanity of McHenry County

“That guy, even at his age ... it was almost 100 degrees every day. He was up and down ladders hammering corrugated tin roofs with a big smile on his face,” Monica said.

Habitat for Humanity ”was something near and dear to his heart," Monica said.

Donna Vestal of Crystal Lake grew up in the Plains area and met with the Carters many times over the years. Vestal, a U.S. Navy veteran, said she would see the Carters on trips home to Georgia.

“When I went home, ... they would have a special lunch for Jimmy and Rosalynn and their Secret Service” at a restaurant in town, Vestal said.

She remembers Rosalynn saying that they would eat whenever they had a chance because, with their schedule, the couple didn’t know when they would get to do that again, Vestal said.

The Carter Center announced the death Sunday.

“Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family.

• The AP contributed to this story.