Active in the temperance movement, she began her work in Bloomington, Illinois, where she was one of early board of managers of The Union Signal and helped materially to lift it out of financial depression.

Beginning in 1886, Riggs was almost continuously in office, serving as president of the Oregon Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

Having had experience in Illinois with serving on the board of managers of The Union Signal and helping to bring it out of financial depression, in 1891, she started the Oregon White Ribbon.

Her siblings were Matilda, Marquis, Mary, Monroe, Priscilla, Norman, John, (infant), Katuria, Orvil, and Charles.

[3] The education of the children was carried on at home, until each child could walk the long distance to the public school.

Bloomington is the seat of the Illinois Wesleyan University, and when the woman's chair of English literature was created, Riggs aided in securing an endowment that made it perpetual in the institution.

When The Union Signal was struggling for existence, she was one of the board of managers, active in the successful efforts to make that periodical a leading journal.

The office at the WCTU headquarters was so often appealed to by that in 1887 the Portland Union, under the auspices of Riggs and a few additional women, opened an industrial home.