Ora Belva Palmer was born on September 4, 1904 in Aurora, Missouri to Amanda Belle Vaughn and James Henry Palmer. She married Everett John Phelps on December 25, 1921. The couple had one daughter, Rosetta Belle Phelps. She later left Phelps and moved west to pursue a divorce. She moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1931. She worked as a waitress and married Louis A. Prichard on February 8, 1935 in St. George, Utah. In 1938, she began to work at the Shady Moor Lodge, a boarding house located at 325 South Second Street.