Who Were Jimmy Carter’s 3 Siblings? All About the Late President’s Brother Billy and Sisters Gloria and Ruth

Mar. 15, 2025

Jimmy Carter with his mother Lilian, his brother Billy, and his sisters Gloria and Ruth.Photo:CORBIS/Corbis/Getty

CORBIS/Corbis/Getty

Jimmy Cartergrew up as the oldest of four children with one brother, Billy, and two sisters, Gloria and Ruth.

The former president was born on Oct. 1, 1924, and lived to be 100. Hedied on Dec. 29 at his Plains, Ga., home, Jimmy’s son James confirmed — nearly two years after he entered hospice care in February 2023.

Jimmy’s sister, Gloria, was born two years after Jimmy in 1926. In 1929, Jimmy’s parents welcomed his second sister, Ruth, and in 1937, Jimmy’s brother, Billy, was born.

Throughout his life, Jimmy was close to his younger siblings, all of whom died between 1983 and 1990. He even had his sister Ruth to thank for helping himget close to his late wife,Rosalynn Carter, whodied on Nov. 19, 2023, at 96 years old.

While none of his siblings followed suit in his political career, the Carter children all had paths of their own from running the family business to working as a faith healer.

From their childhoods to their careers, here’s everything to know about Jimmy Carter’s siblings.

The Carter siblings grew up on a peanut farm

A portrait of President Jimmy Carter as a young boy with his sister Gloria circa 1928.CORBIS/Corbis/Getty

Jimmy and his younger siblings were raised on the family’s peanut farm in Georgia. Jimmy’s father, Earl, became the owner in 1928 when Jimmy was 4 years old and Gloria was 2. His two youngest siblings never knew life before the farm.

The property came to be known as The Boyhood Farm, and Earl cultivated crops like corn, cotton and sugar cane in addition to peanuts. The Carter family also ran the Carter Warehouse, which was a peanut warehousing business in Jimmy’s hometown of Plains, Ga.

In the years before Jimmy was elected as president in 1976, Billy took over running the warehouse.

Gloria was passionate about motorcycle racing

Gloria Spann in New York, August 17th 1977.UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty

UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty

Gloria was an avid motorcycle enthusiast and was notably one of the first women inducted into Harley Davidson’s 100,000 Mile Club. She was also named Most Outstanding Female Motorcyclist in 1978.

Gloria not only enjoyed riding, but she also was an activist for motorcyclist rights. In December 1976, she told theMuscatine Journalthat as a member of the Georgia Motorcycle Rights organization, she planned to use her connections in the White House to advocate for motorcycle safety.

After she died, a team of motorcyclists led the funeral procession in her honor, perThe San Bernardino County Sun.

Ruth was a faith healer

Jimmy Carter and his sister Ruth Carter Stapleton campaigning in Boston, Massachusetts in 1976.Mikki Ansin/Getty

Mikki Ansin/Getty

Jimmy’s second youngest sister turned to religion when it came to her career, and she published six books ranging in topics from her own personal life experiences to her views on inner healing. PerThe New York Times, Ruth even built a retreat center, Hovita, for faith healing and to train others in her teachings.

She referred to herself as a “spiritual healer” and her technique involved focusing on one’s childhood and imagining Jesus was with them in a trying situation. She also preached forgiving those close to a person in order to promote their own healing.

‘‘To me, it is communicating love to the negative repressed aspects in a human being,” she said, perThe New York Times, of her “inner healing” process.

When she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she refused treatment and said she would rely on her faith in God to help her heal using prayer and meditation.

Billy and Jimmy had a turbulent relationship

Jimmy Carter with brother Billy Carter in Plains, Georgia in 1977.Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty

Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty

‘‘I do not deny I brought most of my notoriety on myself, nor do I apologize for it,’’ Billy told the Senate investigators of the situation, perThe New York Times. ‘‘I refused to conform to an image that a lot of people thought a President’s brother should adopt. I considered myself to be a private individual who had not been elected to public office and resented the attention of different Government agencies that I began to hear from almost as soon as Jimmy was sworn in.’’

Ruth was close to Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.Bettmann

Bettmann

While Jimmy knew Rosalynn since the day she was born, since Rosalynn was closer in age to his sister Ruth, the two bonded immediately.

After Jimmy came back home for the summer before his final year at the U.S. Naval Academy, Ruth and Rosalynn were scheming a way to get them together. “Ruth and I had been trying to get me together with him,” she wrote inFirst Lady from Plains, her memoir. The rest was history.

All three of Jimmy’s siblings died of pancreatic cancer

Jimmy Carter with his family in 1953.Bettmann

Jimmy’s siblings all died of pancreatic cancer within a seven-year span of each other, following their dad’s death from the same illness thirty years earlier. Ruth first got sick with the disease in 1983 and she died just months after diagnosis on Sept. 26, 1983, refusing treatment. She was 54 years old. The Carter’s mother died of breast cancer — which also spread to her pancreas — only a month later on Oct. 30, 1983.

Five years later, Billy was also diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told it was inoperable. He died “quietly and peacefully in his sleep,” per his obituary, on Sept. 25, 1988. He was 51 years old.

Less than two years later, Gloria died from pancreatic cancer on March 5, 1990, at 63 years old.

source: people.com