AMERICUS, Ga. — Hundreds of people gathered outside Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus on Saturday to watch as pallbearers carried Jimmy Carter’s casket to the hearse.
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The motorcade passed a crowd carrying American flags as the former president left the hospital and traveled eight miles to his hometown of Plains before going to Atlanta.
Among those braving the morning cold was Nancy Peabody, who’s lived in the area for 52 years. She was an early supporter of Carter for president and joined the “Peanut Brigade, campaigning out of state on his behalf.
“We traveled by bus or by plane,” she said. “And people were glad to see us. They really were, and it was like good manners to open the door with a smile for this woman from Georgia.”
The motorcade’s departure from Phoebe Sumter was the start of six days of funeral events. It’s a hospital that was dear to Carter. After a tornado destroyed the old community hospital in 2007, he helped secure the funding to build a new one.
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Elaine Johnson and her daughter, Shynetria Moss, drove from Macon to view the motorcade at the hospital. They came not only to salute a president but to honor what they considered a good and decent, faith-filled man.
“In my household, he was always revered really highly,” Moss said. “And I was so proud, particularly as a Georgian and mostly as a Christian.”
Johnson agreed.
“He was a good man, not just in the White House, he was a good, Christian man.”
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