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.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress