The legendary mother of former President Jimmy Carter was an avid integrationist in pre-Civil Rights era Georgia, joined the Peace Corps when she was past retirement age and, when her son told her he planned to run for president, Lillian Carter retorted, "of what?"

Carter memorializes his mother in "A Remarkable Mother" (Simon & Schuster: $22.95).

This was a woman who, obviously, kept her feet on the ground. Carter quotes his mother's reaction to his election as president:

"When asked later in a news interview what her first thoughts were on hearing my plan to run, she replied, 'Well, I was pleased. I figured that if he was elected president, someone would open a good restaurant in Plains.'"

Later, Mrs. Carter was provided with a Georgia state trooper bodyguard, a service she didn't want, but accepted reluctantly. The bodyguard told of traveling with Lillian Carter.

"We traveled in about a dozen foreign countries and in all the states except Alaska, North Dakota and Hawaii, and traveling with Miss Lillian was great. You never knew what to expect. She never complained, regardless of how difficult it was at times, and one of the first things she told me when we started travelling was to never complain, regardless of how bad the food was or the service or the situation, just to smile and tell them how great it was. She did all of her complaining to me after we were back in our rooms. She was kind to everyone she met, but if she did not like someone or something, she would let you know it. She also was very jealous of other women getting the attention if she was around. She always managed to arrange to be the 'Star of the Show.' I was glad to be in the supporting cast."

During her Peace Corps stint in India, Lillian Carter worked as a nurse among the poor.

"In some ways, Mama was looked upon as an untouchable because she was involved in handling human wastes and performed many of the personal duties that servants provided the higher-caste Indians. The caste system always bothered her and she expressed some resentment toward Prime Minister Indira Gandhi because of this and the rigid family planning restraints she imposed. Mama commented often about her difficulty in determining which person was supposed to perform which task — much worse than the divisions of responsibility within American labor unions."

What's remarkable about this book, given the fact it was written by a successful politician, is that Carter doesn't make it about him. He tells his mother's story, but does not embellish it, does not add his interpretation of events, does not take center stage.

"When it was time for us to go to Washington for the inauguration ceremony, President Gerald Ford sent the plane he used as Air Force One to pick up our family. In high spirits, we formed a motorcade in Plains and started the 35-mile trip down to the Albany airport. We had been driving about 15 minutes when we realized that Mama was missing! Everyone had thought that someone else would pick her up. We stopped immediately. I raced back to her home and found her, stony-faced and furious, sitting in her living room. Her first comment to me was 'I've decided to stay home and not attend the inauguration.' She was soon persuaded to go with us, but she never let us forget that we had left her behind. She was the one who said, 'We're late, through no fault of mine, but if the damned plane won't wait for us, then you'd just as well not be president!'"

That was a sentiment her son no doubt shared often during his tumultuous four years in office.