About a year before she died, Betty Joan Prince quietly prepared letters for her family to open after her death.
The handwritten notes, addressed individually to her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, were filled with encouragement, love and reminders to keep living fully. By then, Prince was living with Alzheimer’s disease, but her family said the letters reflected the same warmth, resilience and Jewish values that had guided her throughout her life.
“She provided us with the most incredible gift,” her son, Scott Prince, said. “It was her old voice, her old self coming through.”
Prince, a Baltimore-born artist, entrepreneur and longtime member of Har Sinai Congregation who taught art, owned floral shops and later launched a jewelry business in her 60s, died May 12 at the age of 78 from complications of dementia.
“She always believed if you could work doing something you loved, it didn’t really feel like work,” Scott Prince said.
Born Nov. 14, 1947, to Morris and Maxine Goldstein, Prince spent her childhood first in Baltimore and later in Pikesville. She graduated from Milford Mill High School and later attended Towson University.
Her son said she grew up surrounded by a large extended Jewish family whose members regularly gathered for holidays, Shabbat dinners and celebrations throughout the Baltimore area.
“She was always a very spiritual person,” Scott Prince said. “She believed we were all bound together as a people and that we were stronger together.”
Prince was raised in a Reform Jewish home and carried many of those traditions into adulthood. Her family belonged to Har Sinai Congregation, where she was active in the sisterhood and volunteered in Sunday school classrooms. Jewish holidays and traditions remained central in her home throughout her life.
“All the holidays, it was very much her identity and who she was,” her daughter-in-law, Stacy Prince, said.
Prince came from a highly artistic family. Her mother painted, several relatives worked in creative fields and her father led an orchestra in Baltimore in which Prince occasionally performed as a singer. She also studied voice at the Peabody Conservatory. Relatives said artistic expression shaped nearly every aspect of her life.
“She had this creativity in just the way she lived her life,” Stacy Prince said. “Whether it was the way she dressed or the way she arranged flowers or the way she thought of a gift.”
Prince worked as an art teacher at The Boys’ Latin School of Maryland, where she taught younger children. Scott Prince said his mother especially enjoyed encouraging students to express themselves through art at a young age.
“She felt younger children were less self-conscious,” he said. “That’s what she really enjoyed.”
In the 1970s, Prince began a home-based business called Scott’s Crafts. Her entrepreneurial spirit later led her to open the Crystal Flower and Gift Shop in Sparks during the mid-1980s. She later expanded into a larger business, Willowcrest Garden Center.
Relatives recalled her passion for gardening, floral design and creating beautiful spaces. Stacy Prince remembered the large gardens Prince maintained at home and the excitement she brought to arranging flowers and plants.
“She taught me how to garden,” Stacy Prince said. “That’s something I’ve come to love because of her.”
Prince started another creative venture in her late 60s when she taught herself jewelry-making and launched Lena Long Jewelry, a jewelry business named after her grandmother. She designed one-of-a-kind necklaces and accessories and sold them at shows throughout Baltimore and Washington.
Scott Prince said his mother carefully sketched each design and selected beads, chains and colors herself.
The same attention and care extended beyond her artwork and businesses into her relationships with other people. Friends and relatives described Prince as stylish, outgoing and deeply attentive to other people. Stacy Prince said she often heard stories from friends and acquaintances about small acts of kindness Prince had performed over the years.
“She was just a genuinely sweet and thoughtful person,” Stacy Prince said.
Scott Prince said his mother had a gift for making people feel important.
“When you were talking to her, you felt like you had her full attention,” he said.
Prince also faced major health struggles beginning in her early 50s, including a double pulmonary embolism, lupus, thyroid cancer and colon cancer. Despite those illnesses, her family said she remained active and continued making jewelry and attending craft shows into her early 70s.
“She taught us so much about how to live through adversity with grace,” Stacy Prince said.
Family life remained at the center of Prince’s world. She especially cherished her role as “Grammy” to her grandchildren, Amanda and Walker. They said she encouraged Amanda’s artistic interests from an early age, helping inspire her eventual studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
“She was the kind of grandmother who was down on the floor playing with them,” Stacy Prince said. “They felt absolutely loved.”
Prince loved family gatherings, beach vacations and Maryland crab feasts. Her family regularly traveled to Ocean City during summers, often staying at the Carousel resort.
Scott Prince said steamed crabs remained one of his mother’s favorite Baltimore traditions throughout her life.
In her later years, Prince lived with Alzheimer’s disease, though relatives said she continued facing life with dignity and gratitude.
Stacy Prince said one lesson remained constant throughout her mother-in-law’s life.
“She always said she had no regrets and that she lived a beautiful life,” Stacy Prince said. “That sense of gratitude is what will stay with us.”
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance obituary writer. She welcomes suggestions for individuals who had meaningful ties to the Baltimore Jewish community. Email [email protected].
