Mrs. R. L. Riggins Dead, Rites Today

Mrs. Mattie Grace Riggins, 63, wife of R. L. Riggins, died at 2 yesterday morning at her home in Lewiston Orchards near the south city limits of acute bronchitis from which she had been a sufferer for several years. She was taken seriously ill one month ago.

A native of Iowa, born in 1876, with her parents she moved to Winfield, Kans., when a girl and received her schooling there. At the age of 16 she came west and resided at Tacoma, then moving to Pendleton.

Mrs. Riggins was one of few women to join in the gold rush to Thunder mountain in 1901 and for four years operated the hotel at Florence, then in its heyday as a mining camp. The trip from Grangeville to Florence was made on snow shoes and a bobsled, the snow in places attaining a depth of 16 feet, she often told. Selling the hotel Mrs. Riggins came to Lewiston in 1904 and since resided here. Mr. Riggins acquired farm property in Lewiston Orchards in 1920 and since then they made their home here.

Mrs. Riggins was an affiliate of the Christian church and until the last few years was active in community affairs.

Survivors include her husband, R. L. Riggins, a member of one of the earliest families of central Idaho; her son, Carl Gardner, her daughter, Mrs. Roy Welker; Kellogg; Earl Welker, Grace Welker and Louise Welker, Lewiston, and Carl Gardner, Jr., Long Beach, Calif., and one great-grandchild, Eddie Welker, son of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Welker.

Funeral services will be held this afternoon at 2:30 at the Brower-Wann chapel, the Rev. Dr. John W. Caughlan officiating. Interment will be at Normal Hill cemetery.