Born in Piedmont, South Carolina, Riley attended public school. She graduated from Converse College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1915. She was a teacher. Served as field representative of the South Carolina State Text Book Commission from 1938 to 1942. Riley was associated with the Civilian Personnel Office at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina during World War II, from 1942 to 1944.[1]
Riley was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-seventh Congress, by special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of United States Representative her husband, John Jacob Riley, a World War I veteran,[2] and served from April 10, 1962, to January 3, 1963. Her opponent in the Democratic primary was state legislator Martha Thomas Fitzgerald; it was believed to be the first time in South Carolina history that two women had competed against each other in a congressional election.[3] She was not a candidate for reelection to the Eighty-eighth Congress in 1962. She retired and died on April 12, 1979, in Sumter, South Carolina.[4] Her remains were cremated; her ashes interred in Sumter Cemetery, South Carolina.
