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While cold weather and heightened security likely dampened turnout, thousands of well-wishers still traipsed through the snow and ice to pay final tribute to the 39th president.
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Mourners Pay Their Respects to Former President Jimmy Carter
Visitors said their final goodbyes to Jimmy Carter, lying in state at the Capitol, and reflected on what the former president meant to them.
“President Carter was the first person I ever voted for, the first time I was able to vote. Just so impressed with him, the way he carried himself and how he served our country.” “President Carter was the very first president that I recall being inaugurated. We were in the first grade, and I remember our teacher having us, say, ‘You’re going to watch this. Watch the new president.’ And it was a unique time as I got older because I recognized Jimmy Carter was exactly what the country needed coming off the Watergate scandal. So for Carter to come along with the level of integrity that he demonstrated in every area of his life, he was just what the country needed at the time.” “He wasn’t necessarily looked on as the best president when I was growing up, but the things he did after the presidency and the way he worked to help people, and his character through it all during the presidency and after, and how he comported himself.”
Jan. 8, 2025, 4:51 p.m. ET
They came amid the ice and snow, bundled in parkas and long johns, expecting an hourslong wait in the subfreezing temperatures and whipping winds.
Instead, the mourners who journeyed through the maze of barricades around the Capitol to pay their final respects to President Jimmy Carter were shocked to find such a short queue, waiting just 10 to 20 minutes at most to honor the 39th president, who died at 100 last month.
Parents pushed strollers. Children and adults alike lumbered into the Capitol dressed in insulated snow pants and clunky winter boots. No celebrities, sports stars or internet icons made appearances in the Rotunda, as they have for previous presidents.
But President-elect Donald J. Trump and his wife, Melania, were expected to pay their respects later Wednesday.
And the slow and steady stream of regular people — as well as several members of Congress, staff, military leaders and dignitaries — seemed a fitting tableau for the lying-in-state of the humble peanut farmer from Georgia, who prided himself on living more than 60 years in a four-bedroom home valued at just over $250,000.
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