When former President Jimmy Carter was diagnosed with brain cancer almost a decade ago, he asked Walter Mondale, his vice president and lifelong friend, to write a eulogy for his funeral.
But as fate would have it, Carter outlived the Minnesotan, who died in 2021. Yet the eulogy penned by Mondale will still be read at Carter’s funeral on Thursday — by Mondale’s eldest son, Ted.
“It’s a tremendous honor,” he said Wednesday. “I take it very seriously.”
Mondale found his father’s work “very timely and well thought out.” It touches on Carter’s devotion to human, women’s and environmental rights. And it is an ode to two men who governed as equals rather than elder and subordinate, creating a model for future presidents and vice presidents.
In the eulogy, the elder Mondale said he accepted Carter’s invitation to run as vice president with two conditions: “I wanted to make a real contribution and didn’t want to be embarrassed or humiliated as many of my predecessors had been in office.” Carter readily agreed, embracing a true partnership.
“If you had to summarize it, it’s about a president and a vice president who actually got along and were very close friends,” Ted Mondale said. “They maintained that friendship throughout the rest of their lives.”
He recalls the 93-year-old Carter visiting Minnesota for his father’s 90th birthday. “Coming from Georgia to Minnesota in January, well, that’s a friend you can count on,” he said.