Local historian Larry Cook, standing, speaks to a group at the Hoyt Library in Kingston, talking about his personal friendship with and great admiration for the late President Jimmy Carter. Cook and his wife, Diane, have recently returned from President Carter’s funeral, where they were invited guests, and Cook is speaking at a podium from which President Carter spoke during a local appearance.
Tony Callaio | For Sunday Dispatch
Local historian Larry Cook presents tribute to Jimmy Carter
Local historian Larry Cook and his wife, Diane, had been invited to the 75th wedding anniversary celebration for President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in 2021.
And they’d been invited to Rosalynn’s funeral in 2023.
Still, Cook said, they didn’t expect to receive a more recent invitation, via email and bearing the Presidential Seal, to attend the funeral for the late former President, who died Dec. 29 at age 100.
“It was one of the greatest honors of Diane’s and my life,” Cook told a roomful of interested area residents who attended a tribute to the late president that Cook presented Monday evening at the Hoyt Library in Kingston.
“I truly believe he will be the best-remembered United States president around the world,” Cook said, noting that Carter is well-respected for his accomplishments in the 43 years after he left office, and also during 1977-1981, the four years that he served in the White House.
“Absolutely,” a woman in the audience agreed quietly — but distinctly enough for Cook to hear her. “Thank you,” he said.
The Cooks enjoyed a 20-year friendship with the Carters and, thanks to their knowledge of memorabilia and auctions, organized an event in Wyoming Valley that raised money for historic preservation in Plains, Ga. They hosted the Carters and were hosted by the Presidential couple, often visiting three or four times a year.
The friendship began when Diane Cook, knowing her husband’s fondness for history, arranged for the couple to visit Plains, Georgia, where the former President often taught Sunday School class.
After the local couple attended the class at a Georgia church, Larry Cook wrote a thank-you letter to Jimmy Carter — and received a handwritten letter in return, inviting the Cooks to visit Georgia again.
The Cooks got to know a down-to-earth Jimmy and Rosalynn, sharing meals and anecdotes around their table, noting on one occasion that the knees of the jeans Jimmy Carter was wearing looked a bit muddy. After the meal, Carter was eager to show the visitors the solar panels he had been helping to install in a field.
Sharing stories about Carter’s life, Cook said the late President had been the first president to be born in a hospital. That happened because his mother, Miss Lillian, was a nurse who was working at the hospital when she went into labor, Cook said.
The former President’s early influences included Rachel Clark, a Black sharecropper on the Carter family farm who acted as a second mother to him, offering advice and teaching him to fish when they weren’t doing chores together.
And the English teacher at the local school, Julia Coleman, in addition to teaching her young charges about art and literature, proved to be prophetic. She was known to inspire her class with something along the lines of “one of these days, one of you boys could be president of the United States.”
Perhaps the reason the teacher didn’t include the entire class in her remark was that during the early part of the 20th century few dreamed that a woman would aspire to that high office. But Carter would grow up to become an advocate for women’s rights, with the Carter Center that he and Rosalynn established in 1982 working around the globe to fight human trafficking and foster more leadership roles for women — alongside such goals as conflicts resolution, providing clean water and eradicating diseases.
“If you want to donate to a great cause, check out the Carter Center,” Cook said. “Every dollar you send is going to go to something good.”
Among his accomplishments during his time in office, Cook said, Carter “did everything humanly possible to get those hostages (53 American diplomats and other citizens in Iran) free,” signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act into law to protect more than 100 million acres, and worked with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David to hammer out a framework that would lead to a peace treaty.
Begin was about to throw in the towel, Cook said, when Carter saved the day by taking the time to sign a separate photograph for each of Begin’s grandchildren, addressing them by name and writing a personal message. When Begin saw the messages on the photos, Cook said, a tear reportedly rolled down his cheek and he was ready to continue the talks.
“He was the most intelligent person I ever met in my life,” Cook said of Carter.
The late former President said the best thing that ever happened to him was marrying Rosalynn. As evidence of the way they could joke together, Cook offered an anecdote about a time Carter teased his wife with comments along the order of “Aren’t you glad you married me” instead of another fellow she had dated.
Without missing a beat, Rosalynn Carter told her husband that if she had married the other man, “then he would have become president.”
On the day of the President’s funeral, Cook said, he and his wife arrived early at the Washington National Cathedral, and military personnel escorted them to an area where they were free to choose their seats. A friend sitting next to them was curious to know which row they were all in and took a brief walk before the service to do some counting.
“Can you guess which row we were in?” Cook asked the group at the Hoyt Library.
“Thirty-nine,” the group murmured in unison.
Their guess was correct, and Cook said he and his wife and their friend became teary, feeling that the 39th President had somehow inspired their choice.
