Ryan, Ora Prichard Smith, 1904-1992

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. The pro[erty was originally built as a hospital by Dr. Halle Hewetson, but after Dr. Hewetson’s death in 1930 and the opening of the Las Vegas Hospital, the hospital was converted to a boarding house and operated by Ora Prichard. She divorced Louis Prichard in 1950. Ora married Richard D. Smith, a plumber, in 1950. Smith drowned in Lake Mead in 1958. She married George Kelly Ryan, a former boarder at Shady Moor, on March 5, 1960. Shady Moor Lodge closed in 1963. Ora Ryan was active in local civic organizations and charities including the American Cancer Society, Order of Eastern Star, and WE CARE, an organization to help female alcoholics. She later moved to Stanwood, Washington where she died on April 23, 1992.