Submitted photo From left, Bill Dade of Champion, first lady Rosalynn Carter, President Jimmy Carter and Dade’s wife, Mary Louise Dade, are shown in this undated photograph outside of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, the Carters’ home church since 1981.

CHAMPION — Upon returning from a vacation near Clearwater, Florida, Bill and Mary Louise Dade stopped for the night — though their lodging choice didn’t feature comfort from a Holiday Inn or a Best Western motel.

“He was friendly and nice, and I could tell he loved the Lord,” Mary Louise Dade, 92, said, referring to impressions she received after having met President Jimmy Carter in the 1980s at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, while en route home to the Mahoning Valley.

Before his death Sunday at age 100, Carter had taught Sunday school for many years at the small country church in the town of nearly 600 residents about two hours south of Atlanta.

“We stayed there for the whole service,” Mary Louise Dade recalled.

Beforehand, Bill and Mary Louise Dade spent overnight at a nearby bed and breakfast. The stopover, however, was not your average B&B: The Dades later discovered that the site also happened to be the 39th president’s birthplace.

Before the Dades arrived at the church on a Saturday, Carter had just finished mowing the lawn, which was on a church list people signed to perform various tasks. By the time the couple drove in, Carter had just left, Bill Dade remembered.

The next day, though, their fortunes changed, because they were able to attend the Sunday school lesson and regular service. Afterward, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, offered to have their pictures taken with others in front of the church, an opportunity of which the Dades took advantage.

They spent perhaps 45 minutes with the Carters, said Mary Louise Dade, who also remembered Rosalynn Carter as being kind, rather quiet and reserved.

During the photographic moment, a Secret Service agent was gracious enough to hold his Bible, said Bill Dade, 96, who served two years in the U.S. Navy, including on the USS Piedmont, and retired after having worked 43 years for Packard Electric, mainly in the wire mill department.

Much to the couple’s surprise, Maranatha Baptist Church was not crowded that Sunday morning — in stark contrast to other Sundays in which people sometimes arrived as early as 5 a.m. to hear the former president. While in Plains, the Dades also bought peanuts from a nearby store — the likes of which he has never found elsewhere, Bill Dade said.

Carter, whose presidential term was from Jan. 20, 1977, to Jan. 20, 1981, also was known for being a peanut farmer, as well as for his work with Habitat for Humanity and his decades-long fight for peace and human rights worldwide, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Carter also admired the German theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and was considered by many to be a Washington outsider when he became president, as well as someone who was not interested in schmoozing with or trying to appease political insiders and elites, or a sometimes hostile Washington press corps.

“He really did believe and would say, ‘Do the right thing, and eventually the politics will catch up,'” Jim Free, Carter’s special assistant for congressional affairs, said.

Mary Louise Dade also praised Carter for doing what she feels is a lifetime of service to others and filled with many right things, including his work with Habitat for Humanity in which he helped build homes for many impoverished Africans. Carter and his wife also have worked on more than 4,000 homes in at least 14 countries worldwide.

Mary Louise Dade was unable to recall the topic of Carter’s Sunday school Bible lesson, “but I was just glad to be there,” she said.

For his part, Bill Dade recalled Carter as having been very friendly and personable — someone with whom one could have a conversation without feeling rushed.

In addition, Dade praised the former president for maintaining a strong moral compass.

“I honored him for being a Christian and for standing up for what he believed in,” Dade said.

During their visit, the Dades also remembered that during the Sunday service, a special offering for the building was asked of parishioners. The first envelope was Rosalynn Carter’s, he said.