“We, the public, have so much to learn from those who came before us. The experiences, the hardships, the heartening, all are attached to human emotion and those emotions are not so different from one generation to the other.”

Sequim resident Carol Swarbrick Dries recently reflected on why people memorialize those who have passed and why she has put so much time and energy into sharing the story of Lillian Carter, professional nurse and remarkable woman, with the world — beginning with a one-woman play, and most recently with the documentary, “Miss Lillian: More than a President’s Mother.”

Check out “Miss Lillian” on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Vudu, Apple TV and other platforms at geni.us/MissLillian.

The documentary features Swarbrick as Carter in luminous scenes filmed in Plains, Ga., President Jimmy Carter’s birthplace and humanitarian hub, juxtaposed with interviews of President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, friends, journalist Sam Donaldson, and former Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda.

“Her family grew to include the world — and it wasn’t easy,” wrote Swarbrick, an actress, writer and co-producer. “When she was in India in the Peace Corps, she was known as an ‘untouchable’ because she treated lepers, she befriended homeless people and treated them with kindness as well as her medical skills.

“Many of the families she helped through her nursing never, in their lifetimes, saw a medical doctor. But she was courageous — and flawed! So, if we feel flawed, if we know we’re not perfect, we still have a role model to encourage us to try!”

Vivian Winther, director of “Miss Lillian,” said she hoped the film would be “a version of a call and response between Carol’s character, which is his (President Carter’s) mother, and himself,” during an interview on the Youtube show “Antoinette and Friends.”

Winther won Best Director at this year’s Seattle Film Festival for her work on the film.

Co-producer Steven Ullman, the long-time producer of the play written by Swarbrick and her husband Jim Dries, said the crew shot most of the movie in four days, save the interviews with Donaldson and Lasorda, who they were able to film at the Dodger’s stadium.

“We were granted incredible access (in Plains),” Ullman said. “We shot most of it in President Carter’s boyhood home.”

Some of the other locations were the train depot that served as President Carter’s campaign headquarters and the Carter plot in the cemetery.

For Swarbrick Dries and her husband,the documentary is a continuation and a validation of work they’ve been doing for years, but for the world it is another example of the ever-expanding influence of Lillian Carter, now a presence in Sequim as she is in places like Plains, Ga., and in Vikhroli, India, where she volunteered in the Peace Corps in her late 60s.

“We started this probably about 12 years ago,” said Dries, who had a full career as a history teacher, is a writer and performer and worked in the Peace Corps himself soon after President Kennedy created it.

He remembered hearing about her at the time.

“There was a lot of buzz about this elderly woman who was in the Peace Corps in India,” Dries said. “She was probably the oldest volunteer in the network. Of course now we’re older than she was at that point, but it’s all relative, isn’t it?”

Swarbrick remembered Carter for her appearances on “The Jimmy Carson Show,” which is also referenced in the film.

“When they first met,” said Swarbrick, “Miss Lillian did not like Johnny Carson, but they were seated together at a dinner. As the dinner went on, they found that they had a very similar background. They were both brought up in very rural surroundings. I guess what sealed the deal was they both realized that they weren’t all that poor, because both of them had two whole outhouses.”

Swarbrick said that after she learned about Carter’s service in India she thought, “I have to learn more about this woman … And the more I learned about her the more I felt impassioned to tell her story. That’s been the motivating force throughout the 11 or 12 years that we’ve been working on this.

“She wasn’t perfect. She was a flawed woman, just like we are all flawed. But she made such a profound difference in the people who were surrounding her.”

Swarbrick has more than 40 years of professional performing arts experience, “primarily in musical theater,” she said. However, her resume is extensive and includes work in television shows like “Columbo,” “Murder She Wrote” and the “Bold and the Beautiful,” and film work with Dolly Parton, Jack Nicholson and Bette Midler.

Swarbrick said it was her agent who first suggested that she create a one-woman play, “because I was getting older, as we seem to do if we’re lucky.”

Miss Lillian, evolving

After a fruitless dive into the histories of musical theater performers, she and Dries found Lillian Carter to be the perfect subject.

The Dries first wrote a two-act one-person play, “Miss Lillian, a Life of Some Significance,” that evolved from a Reader’s Theater Plus performance to a memorized play that won the United Solo Best Biographical Play in 2016, to a shortened version performed for Bess Truman’s 100th birthday celebration at the Truman Center, and then into this new film, possibly with more variations between.

“The turning point probably for us in terms of the development into the documentary was when we were requested by the Truman library to do a performance on the birthday of Bess Truman, the wife of President Truman,” Dries said.

They were informed that the performance had to be 45-60 minutes long and realized that they had to shorten the length and change the format of the play, leading them to drop the props.

“We were not going to pass that opportunity up,” said Dries.

Swarbrick and Dries met a descendent of Carter during an intermission during the play; she encouraged the couple to send a recording of the performance to the former President via the Carter Center.

“And I thought, that’s a huge operation, that Carter Center, he will never hear about this at all,” Swarbrick said.

A few weeks later they received a personal message from President Carter, one which the couple has since framed.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed your delightful performance as my mother,” President Carter wrote. “Before going further, let me express a hope that you and Jim can come to see us … ”

This invitation fulfilled a wish Dries had once expressed to Swarbrick Dries before they’d even begun the play. Upon her asking (on the eve of a significant birthday) what one living person he wished to meet, he had said, “Jimmy Carter.” At that time it hadn’t seemed possible.

Since the initial correspondence the Dries and the Carters developed a relationship of mutual respect, kindness, and moments of humor. When visiting Plains, the Dries, and later Ullman and the filmmakers, were treated to the same egalitarian courtesy from the son as depicted in their story of the mother.

Ullman holds a respect boarding on reverence for the man who earned his first vote for president. “The hour I got to sit with Pres Carter I will treasure as long as I live” he said, referring to the interview conducted for the documentary. “He is an amazing man.”

Ullman said that “A Remarkable Mother,” by President Carter “was essentially the starting point” for the research involved.

“She imbued values in him that make him one of the greatest people I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet.”

“When Jim, Carol and I were invited to the Carter Center on a private tour, we learned that when President Carter lost his re-election, his mother said to him, ‘Hmm, Jimmy, you’re 55-years-old — when I was 70 I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer – what are you going to do with the rest of your life that’s significant?’

“I think he responded to that challenge well.”

Ullman said that President Carter told them, “‘In a couple weeks I’m doing my Habitat for Humanity build. I don’t do this for a photo op, I do it to build.’”

President Carter learned to build when he was young and he and his wife Rosalynn been involved with Habitat since 1984.

“We have been honored to have two of the world’s most respected and famous people as dedicated and hardworking Habitat volunteers for more than 35 years,” says the Habitat for Humanity website.

“He doesn’t do anything just for publicity, he does it from his heart, and he got that from his mom,” said Ullman. “And that’s why we tell her story.”

After participating in the publicity involved with the documentary, the Dries hope for further evolution of the play.

“After the busy-ness of the release of the film dies down, we are preparing to publish the play,” Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said she hopes high school students will be able to perform it, and that more characters will be added.

“This is a big move for us, because previously, I was the only one able to perform it,” she said. “I am not at all certain that I will perform it live again, but others will have access to it, too.

“Of course, my husband and I would relish the opportunity to be consultants and/or directors of the play in the future as well. We do hope the film creates more interest in the story of Lillian Carter.”

For more about the documentary, visit misslillian.com. Watch the documentary at geni.us/MissLillian.