Minnesota's Walter Mondale left behind a eulogy for Jimmy Carter
MINNEAPOLIS — There will be a special eulogy Thursday at the state funeral for the late President Jimmy Carter.
Carter's vice president, Walter Mondale, died in 2021 but he left behind a eulogy that his son Ted will read at the service.
In 2015, Carter, who was 90 years old at the time, announced he had brain cancer.
"I think my father wrote this eulogy in 2015 after Carter was diagnosed with brain cancer because, you know, 90-year-olds usually don't last very long," said Ted Mondale.
For years, Ted Mondale did not know about the eulogy.
"After my dad passed, I received a call from the Carter folks at the Carter center who said ... 'Your dad was going to give this eulogy, we would like you to give it,'" said Ted Mondale.
The eulogy touches on how some issues Carter and Mondale faced were ahead of their time.
"The most was climate change. Yeah, I mean Carter staked his presidency on environmental regulation, on deregulation of industries, on conservation," he said.
The eulogy also describes how Carter and Walter Mondale created the model for the modern day vice presidency. Walter Mondale wrote that "unlike a lot of vice presidents and their presidents, our relationship did not blow up."
"They were great partners, they were great friends throughout their lives," said Ted Mondale.
There will be another eulogy delivered at Carter's state funeral that is also coming years after the author's death. President Gerald Ford wrote a eulogy for Carter before he died in 2006. Despite the fact that Carter beat Ford in the 1976 presidential election, the two became close friends. Ford's eulogy will be read by his son Steven.
