After the death of his father in 1953, Carter left his naval career and returned home to Georgia to take up the reins of his family's peanut-growing business. Carter was the first U.S. president to be born in a hospital. Numerous generations of Carters lived as cotton farmers in Georgia. Carter is also a descendant of Thomas Cornell, an ancestor of Cornell University's founder, and is distantly related to Richard Nixon and Bill Gates. Carter attended the Plains High School from 1937 to 1941.