Wiirre recalls encounters with former President

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

When the news broke that President Jimmy Carter passed away at age 100 on December 29, one local resident had already been informed by the Carter Foundation.

Lois Wiirre, rural New York Mills, has been an admirer of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter for many years. Not only did she follow the Carters’ time in the White House, but also their time after the presidency where they continued their humanitarian efforts at home.

“I was told ahead of time,” said Wiirre. “I was sent a text that President Carter died before it even hit the news and I was so sad.”

This wasn’t the first time Wiirre had been given this courtesy of being one of the first to hear the news. The Carter Foundation sent a text in 2023 bearing the news of Rosalynn Carter’s death in November of that year. Both times, Wiirre felt a sense of sadness, knowing that two of her role models in this world had gone.

Wiirre had met President Carter once on a trip home from Georgia, one that she will never forget.

“I was visiting my daughter and she drove me back to Atlanta, Georgia because she was in the service,” explained Wiirre. “I was taking a plane directly from Atlanta to Minneapolis. Jimmy and Rosalynn were the very last to get on the plane. They were very humble and they never flew private planes.

“He was coming to Minnesota for something,” she continued. “They happened to be flying into Minneapolis. Of course people saw them get on and the stewardess announced ‘President Carter is on the plane.’ He was so nice, because what they did was, when everybody got settled and everything the stewardess announced that Jimmy Carter will come and greet you and say hello and when that’s done, they would like their privacy.”

Wiirre said that she remembers that it was all done in a very courteous way and that everyone had a moment to chat with the late president.

“That was my first encounter with him,” she said. “My second encounter was with my daughter when we tried to go and see his Nobel Peace Prize. I had contacted Walter Mondale because he was still alive at the time and I said, ‘is there any way we can get tickets through you or get in to see this’ because I had never seen a Nobel Prize at all.

“We didn’t get in there, but President Carter sent me a personal letter in the mail saying how sorry he was that we weren’t able to go into the museum part,” she continued. “He wrote that the people from Minnesota held a special part in his life because Walter Mondale was his vice president, so it was just really nice.”

For many years Wiirre wrote recipe columns for the New York Mills newspapers and she had reached out to Carter for a peanut recipe as he was often nicknamed the “peanut farmer.” The couple did sent her a recipe that she was able to submit to the local paper.

“You just can’t use the world humble enough,” she said. “Farmers are hard workers, they don’t complain and him and his wife being involved in Habitat for Humanity, it was such a good fit for them because he was out there hammering nails and she was out there feeding people and doing whatever she could. For a President of the United States to do that had never been seen before, it was just something presidents didn’t do. They were so involved.”

One of Wiirre’s favorite aspects of the Carters’ story was their dedication to their church in Plains, Georgia. President Carter taught Sunday school and Bible study for around 40 years at the Maranatha Baptist Church and only stopped five years ago when he wasn’t physically able to do so anymore.

“You could just go in there, if you happened to be in Plains, Georgia and you could go and sit and listen in to his Bible study,” she said. “It just blows your mind that you can just walk in to the church and listen, nowadays it’s unheard of.”

With Minnesotans holding a special place in Jimmy Carter’s heart, Wiirre felt that love both when she spoke to him in Georgia and in his correspondence afterward. With a daughter that had served in the United States military, she said that Carter took a special interest as he also had served in the United States Navy.

“Once he heard I was from Central Minnesota and then I told him that my daughter was in the service, it was like, he just popped an interest because he was in the service himself, so it was interesting,” said Wiirre. “He told me this personally, he said there was always two important people in his life. He said first is God and second is Rosalynn. Without either, he couldn’t have done anything in his life, he felt.”

While Wiirre regrets not being able to see Carter’s Nobel Prize in Georgia, she can remember the good memories of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and their legacy that is left in the hearts of the American people.

“He was a very undervalued, underestimated president,” said Wiirre. “I can’t use the world humble enough. We lost a good president.”