Adeline Parmelia Riggins Orr Place was born July 8, 1854 in Charleston, Coles County, Illinois, to Reed W. and Carmelia White Riggins. Addie's people were farmers and she learned to care for the animals and raise a garden. Addie also learned to sew at an early age and could make all her clothes, hats and men's shirts and suits. She could braid wheat straw to make straw hats. When she was seventeen years old, she met and married Thomas Corwin Orr, March 2, 1871. Mr. Orr was also a farmer. They had four children, two girls and two boys. When the youngest child was but two months old, Thomas got very sick. There were no doctors near and no money to take him to a town or city where a doctor could be found. Thomas passed away of a ruptured appendix and is buried in Coles County, Illinois. Grandma Place told me how sad it was, to see his tracks in the snow long months after he had died. Addie could not get enough sewing to support her family and life looked very bleak. Her sister, Sarah Cartwright sent for her to come to Phoenix, Arizona to help cook for the hired hands on the big farm and ranch that Mr. Cartwright owned, so Addie, being the frugal lady that she was, butchered the last of the chickens they had, cook up a lot of biscuits and packed their food in a big basket for the train trip to Phoenix. She said she only had money for the train trip and could not afford to buy food on the train. Sarah had something like fourteen children, so it was a houseful when Addie arrived with her four. Mr. William Atherton Place would walk from Phoenix each Sunday to hold Sunday school and Church. Addie and William struck up a friendship and decided to marry, he agreeing to raise her children and be a father to them and she would raise his little boy and be a mother to him. They were married April 12, 1885 at Mr. Cartwright's in Maricopa County, Arizona. Mr. Place was killed in a premature dynamite blast while building a railroad in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1904. Addie lived to be 95 years old. She became quite famous for her handmade quits and her beautiful quilting. She died at her daughter Nanny's residence in Safford, Arizona, July 14, 1949. She is buried in the Safford City Cemetery.

Bio by Nancy E. Brown, Addie's step-granddaughter.