Jimmy Carter’s funeral service at the National Cathedral on Jan. 9 will include a heartfelt eulogy from the grave.

Walter Mondale, who was Carter’s running mate in 1976 and again in 1980, died in 2021 at the age of 93. But when the 39th president was revealed to have brain cancer in 2015, Mondale prepared a eulogy for his political and personal friend.

The late vice president’s son, Ted Mondale, will read that eulogy. Also during the service, Steven Ford, the son of President Gerald Ford, will read a eulogy prepared by his father before the 38th president’s death in 2006, The New York Times reported.

In his eulogy, Walter Mondale praised Carter for making human rights the linchpin of his foreign policy, for promoting environmental measures and for placing more women in high office than his predecessors, according to the newspaper. That included appointing future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an appeals judge.

Ted Mondale said his father’s eulogy was a window into what Carter was as a president, teammate and friend.

“His comments are a reflection of someone who was side-by-side with him for four years and friends later,” Ted Mondale told KMSP. “They had a very good and strong relationship. They talked on the phone, and it really was a genuine, close, long relationship they had.

“I must say it’s pretty rare for somebody of his stature and his job and how busy and stressed he had to be to take the time to care about other people. I think that reflects on the kind of person that he is.”

In his eulogy, Walter Mondale called Carter “a man of his word.”

“I was surprised when then-candidate Governor Carter asked me to join him as his running mate in 1976,” Mondale wrote.

Mondale, a U.S. senator who had represented Minnesota since 1964, had two conditions before joining Carter’s campaign. He said he wanted to make a real contribution and did not want “to be embarrassed or humiliated as many of my predecessors had been in that office.”

“He agreed, welcomed my full participation, directed his staff to treat me as they would him, and during our four years in the White House, he was very careful to protect me from the frustration and too often humiliation that had cursed the lives of many vice presidents,” Mondale wrote.

Ted Mondale called Carter a modest man of character and faith who demonstrated those qualities inside and away from the Oval Office.

“He was a humble man,” the younger Mondale told KMSP.

In his eulogy, Walter Mondale said that he and Carter came up with a sentence that summarized their goals during their four years in office.

“We told the truth, we obeyed the law, and we kept the peace,’” the late vice president wrote. “That we did, Mr. President.”

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