The unusual lives of George and Lora Richards of Hedgesville
A bachelor in his 50s got his live-in young housekeeper pregnant and married her two days before she gave birth in the 1920s. Their union lasted only two years, yet she ended up buried next to him.
Behind this modest grave marker in poor condition at Hedgesville Cemetery lies an unusual story.
The couple laid to rest under the worn-out stone, George and Lora Richards, were married for only two years, from 1921 until George's death in 1923.
Lora had been in her 20s and the widowed mother of two young boys when George -- until then a lifelong bachelor -- hired her to be his live-in housekeeper in his Hedgesville home. Her younger son was still a baby or in utero when her first husband, Daniel McKee, had died.
Lora -- who'd lost her father when she was 15 -- and her children quickly found shelter at George Richards' home.
She and George also quickly conceived a child together while he was her employer.
When they wed, he was 53 years old. She was 29, and two days away from giving birth to their daughter Mabel.
It's a mystery how their life was together as a married couple with a new baby girl. But whatever their relationship was like, it was destined to be brief.
George died of cancer when their little girl, his only known child, was a toddler. He was 56 years old.
Lora was now a widow for the second time, with three young children to care for.
As if all this weren't enough tragedy for one young life, it also appears both of her sons were dead by 1930. Her older son, Daniel, died of rheumatic fever in Hedgesville at age 14. It's unknown what happened to her younger son, George, but there's no trace of him after 1920, when he was about a year old.
Lora married a third time, eight years after George's passing. She was 38 and her third husband, Charles Norrington, was 24. They had a daughter three years later. By 1950, they had separated.
Lora's older daughter Mabel, the one she had with George, lived a long life, with two husbands and several children.
After 1940, no trace can be found of Lora's second daughter, Lucille Norrington, who was born about a decade after Mabel.
By the time Lora died in 1967 in Warrenton, Virginia, at age 75, she had been widowed from her second husband George for nearly forty-five years.
Yet despite having married a third time, Lora ended up buried next to the husband with whom she'd had the shortest marriage, by far.
Adding to the mystery is the fact that whoever ordered the grave marker was only guessing at its occupants' birth dates. The marker lists George's birth year as 1870 and Lora's as 1890, but they were actually born in 1897 and 1891, respectively.
Going back to George's history, he had a rather unusual life even before meeting Lora.
His father, …
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to They Lived In Berkeley County to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.