ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Tributes started to pour in for the former First Lady Rosalynn Carter - spouse of the 39th President, Jimmy Carter - as she died aged 96 on Sunday, November 19.
While the former First Lady has garnered commendable respect through her incessant advocacy of mental health, Carter also set an example herself by hiring a woman convicted for murder as the nanny to her youngest daughter Amy Carter.
To hire Mary Prince, a Georgia woman convicted of murder, Carter had to break the tradition of the White House.
The story of Mary Prince’s association with Rosalynn Carter is an example of the former First Lady’s decisiveness and resolution.
In hiring Mary Prince as Amy’s nanny, Carter stayed true to her conviction as she once reportedly said, “I will always be concerned for those who suffer the indignities of prison life,” per WWD.
Who is Mary Prince?
When Jimmy Carter was the Governor of Georgia, the couple took residence at the Georgia Governor’s Mansion.
Carter met with Prince for the first time in December 1970 when the then 31-year-old woman was serving a life sentence for murder. Prince, however, earned the right to be assigned to the governor’s mansion.
While Prince’s association with the Governor’s house may have seemed scandalous initially, the former First Lady, after taking a close look at her case, determined she was innocent.
In an interview with People published in 1977, Prince recalled the day when she traveled to Atlanta for an interview for a job at the mansion of then Georgia Gov Jimmy Carter.
She recalled, “I was thrilled,” before adding, “All my life I had wanted to meet a governor or a President. But I was nervous, too. I wondered how the Carter family would take to me.”
She also recounted her first interaction with Carter, recalling her saying, “Mrs Carter asked me how I would like to take care of Amy.”
Prince, who was being considered for rehabilitation at the Governor’s house said, “She was just 3, and she took to me right away. She liked me to sing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot to her every night, and I would rub her back and lie down with her. She would even cry at night because she hated to see me leave.”
Prince’s fairy tale story of being a trusted employee of the Carters had a harrowing beginning. After spending a modest childhood in hardship, Prince progressed in her career to become a cashier in a restaurant in 1967.
Prince, at that time, was living in Georgia and became friendly with a cousin, Aniemaude Perry.
As the two women went to a bar in 1970, a chain of events started that changed Prince’s life forever.
She recalled that as they went to the bar, Aniemaude got into an argument with another woman. She continued, “I went outside and heard a shot.”
Prince explained, “Aniemaude and this woman were fighting over Aniemaude’s gun. I didn’t know anything about guns, but I tried to take it away and it went off. We didn’t know it had hit anyone.”
The incident led to the death of a person as the other woman, with whom Aniemaude got into an argument, claimed Prince seized the gun and shot her boyfriend.
Both Prince and Aniemaude were arrested the following morning. Prince recalled, “Aniemaude got out on bail,” before adding, “but I stayed in jail four months.”
She continued, “I got a court-appointed attorney—he was white—and I saw him twice for 10 or 15 minutes. In court, I was under the impression I was pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, but it turned out to be murder.”
She added, “The whole time in court took less than an hour, and I was sentenced right there to life in prison.”
However, Prince got a second chance in life as she was hired by Rosalynne Carter as the nanny.
Mary Prince’s lifelong connection with the Carters
After Jimmy Carter’s term as the Georgia Governor ended in 1975, the family went back to Plains, Georgia. Prince also went back to the prison.
She described her life later in the interview, “When I left...Amy really screamed.”
She continued, “Later Mrs Carter would come and see me at the Fulton County Jail and the Atlanta Work Release Center, where I went as a cook in 1975.”
Prince also added that she “was really excited about Governor Carter running for President.”
Though not eligible for parole, when Jimmy Carter won the presidential election in 1976, Prince was allowed to travel to the White House without guards, in order to attend the inauguration ball.
Rosalynn Carter gave a glimpse of her magnanimous heart when she asked Prince how would she like to work in the White House.
“Before I left,” Prince recalled, “Mrs Carter said, ‘How would you like to work in this big old place?’ ”
Despite the possibility of political repercussions, Rosalynn Carter initiated the process of Prince’s reprieve and soon the Georgia prison officials received a letter from the White House, which meant Prince was freed.
The former First Lady believed in Prince’s innocence and, in 2015, she told Kate Anderson Brower for her 2015 book, ‘The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House’, "She was totally innocent.”
After Carter was defeated in 1980, Prince came back to Georgia with the Carters. Subsequently, she also received a full pardon after "a reexamination of the evidence and trial proceedings by the original judge revealed that she was completely innocent,” per Fox 10.
