[Baltimore Sun] Helen S. Riley, Carroll County preservationist, dies
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Helen S. Riley, a longtime Carroll County preservationist, died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at Fairhaven, a retirement community in Sykesville. She was four days short of her 94th birthday.
“Helen was relentless in her pursuit of local history and to preserve it in order to inspire future generations,” said Doug Velnoskey, a board member of the Historical Society of Carroll County.
“She was very friendly and outgoing and up to date on what was happening locally, nationally and internationally, and was so well-read,” he said. “Because her husband had been in the Navy and they had lived around the world, she had a good global perspective.”
Helen Brogden Shriver, daughter of James McSherry Shriver Sr., who headed the Westminster cannery B.F. Shriver Co., and Helen Brogden, a volunteer at Union Mills Homestead, the ancestral home of the Shriver family that dates to 1797 and is now a museum, was born in Baltimore and raised on Chinquapin Hill, a farm.
After graduating in 1948 from Garrison Forest School, Mrs. Riley studied at Strayer’s Business College in Herndon, Virginia, and attended Catholic University of America in Washington.
Before her 1955 marriage to George Donald Riley Jr., a Naval Academy graduate, she worked for the Federal Reserve Bank in Baltimore, the Junior League of Baltimore and a physician.
After her marriage to Mr. Riley, a career naval officer, she lived in Annapolis, Honolulu, Hawaii, the Persian Gulf and Northern Virginia, while raising five children.
Descended from one of Maryland’s most distinguished families, Mrs. Riley naturally became interested in history and genealogy.
Following her husband’s retirement from the Navy in 1972, the couple lived for 43 years at Farm Content, near Westminster, a historic landmark that was built by her ancestor, David Shriver, a Revolutionary War-era patriot and legislator, that dated to 1795.
Mr. Riley, who also shared his wife’s interest in history and preservation, was the author of “David Shriver (1735-1826)” and four other books about Maryland history.
They restored the property, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The couple also donated part of Farm Content to the Maryland Environmental Trust, the Maryland Historic Trust and the Carroll County Land Trust.
They incorporated the Historic Shriver Graveyard Inc. to ensure the perpetual care of the historic Shriver family, located next to their home.
Mrs. Riley was a lifetime member of the Historical Society of Carroll County and the Union Mills Foundation.
She had also been a member for 60 years of the William Winchester chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and a member of the National Society of the Colonial Dames in America.
Mrs. Riley was a persuasive voice when it came to Carroll County history and preservation.
“She always told it like it was, but she was always congenial and diplomatic, and wanted things done the right way,” Mr. Velnoskey said. “And she wasn’t shy about telling you that because she had core values and beliefs and wasn’t swayed by other opinions.”
Helen S. Riley was a Eucharistic minister at St. John Church in Westminster.
Mrs. Riley wrote about her days growing up in Carroll County for the Carroll County Times. In 2021, she detailed her memories of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the 80th anniversary of the attack.
“Those were frightening times, with news about war almost every day,” she wrote. “My father regularly listened to broadcaster Lowell Thomas on the radio, and I recall listening with him and asking many questions. I did not understand what was happening, and I remember fearing that war would come to Carroll County.”
Mrs. Riley worked for the Historical Society of Carroll County and after retiring joined its board, which in 2002 presented her with an award in recognition of her efforts in preserving and promoting Carroll County history.
She was a volunteer at St. John Church in Westminster, where she was a Eucharistic minister, and the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage.
In 2011, she and her husband moved to Fairhaven, where she became secretary of its residents’ association and a volunteer in its library, gift and treasures shops.
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She wrote for the retirement community’s Inkling magazine.
“She was dedicated to service, and that’s how she lived her life,” said a son, Samuel M. Riley, of Westminster.
Her husband, who worked for the Association of Oil Pipelines in Washington for 17 years, died in 2016.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at 11:30 a.m. Friday at St. John Church in Westminster, with interment in Pipe Creek Cemetery in Union Bridge.
In addition to her son, Mrs. Riley is survived by another son, Benjamin S. Riley, of Summerfield, North Carolina; three daughters, Helen R. Hecht, of Westminster, Virginia, R. Fahrney, of St. Augustine, Florida, and Rebecca R. Silver, of Newbury, New Hampshire; a brother, B. Frank Shriver, of Union Mills; two sisters, Eleanor Shriver Cassilly, of Sykesville, and Madeline Shriver Franklin of Woodbrook, Baltimore County; 13 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
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