The Life of Riley

Living "the life of Riley" is a near-extinct expression dating from the early 20th century meaning the person referred to enjoys a life of ease with everything pretty much always going his way.

A real man named Riley, one James Valentine Riley, may or may not have been familiar with the expression relying on the surname he happened to have been born with, but he had plenty to be thankful for in life. His success, however, did not come with gift wrapping. He achieved what he did through hard work and a keen eye for trading up. He earned his "life of Riley."

Though he ended up in West Texas, Riley's story began in Maries County, Missouri, where he was born Jan. 2, 1855. Family lore has it that when he was a young boy still living in the Show Me State, his family's house burned. Generations later, one of his descendants posted on an online genealogy site that Riley had remembered someone, possibly his aunt, grabbing and pulling him out of the blazing house. Though not directly asserted, the inference is that whoever got him out of that house likely saved his life. It has not been determined if any of his family members died in the fire, but the descendant said Riley never talked about his family.

Whatever happened, by the late 1860s or early 1870s he was living in Hunt County in East Texas. There, on Jan. 19, 1873, he was married to Sarah Elizabeth Parker.

Back then, a bride-to-be did not register for wedding gifts with some high-end retailer, or even Walmart. (Of course, big box stores did not exist in those days.) While it's always been the custom that newlyweds are given practical things to help them set up a household, wedding gifts weren't particularly fancy in Reconstruction-era Texas. And in 1873, the nation was sliding toward one of its worst-ever financial downturns.

When Riley walked down the aisle to exchange vows with his soon-to-be-wife, his net worth amounted to $14 and his monthly income was $15. Chances are, his bride had even less.

One of their presents, a gift that might have been intended as a joke, was a blind horse. Clearly a man very good at putting the proper spin on things, Riley traded that sightless steed for a steer. Soon, he swapped the steer for a three-year-old horse.

In a deal that would do a modern-day used car dealer proud, Riley traded the horse, along with a 40-day work commitment, for a big work mare. Satisfying his obligation to work off a portion of the horse's cost, he traded the work horse and more of his "free" labor for a team of horses.

"After these commercial deals," Mrs. Clyde Miller, one of Riley's daughters, wrote for the 1957 book, "A Saga of Scurry," "there was no holding Riley back. He kept on working and trading and got hold of a 40-acre farm near Kingston." (Founded as a railroad town in 1880, Kingston is 10 miles north of Greenville in Hunt County.)

Somehow, Riley parlayed that land into 110 acres near Celeste, a community three miles north of Kingston. From there, in 1886, he moved to Central Texas and an even larger farm in Coryell County. Four years after that, he relocated to Mills County. Again, he had acquired even more land than he had before.

"[T]he Rileys knew how to make each dollar count," his daughter wrote, "to do its full duty and bring results."

Finally, around 1891 he moved to Scurry County and purchased a large ranch north of Synder.

Having continuously traded up for better and better deals, Riley stayed put this time. He died at 75 on Jan. 17, 1930 and is buried in Snyder Cemetery. Two years younger than her husband, Sarah Riley lived until Nov. 4, 1933.

"At his death," Mrs. Miller wrote of her father, "he left each of his eight children a section [640 acres] of land. His memory will ever be cherished by his children and his friends."

And it all started with a horse that couldn't see.

As Riley's daughter noted with justified pride, "A blind horse can be made the lever of success, if the man handling the lever exerts himself."


© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales" March 2, 2017 column
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