FATHER: Charles Williams Switzer
(1854-1928)
MOTHER: Mary Virginia Burger (1857-1946)
MARRIED: Robert Thurman Riley
(1888-1969)
April 10, 1912 (Botetourt Co., VA)
CHILDREN:
ARAMINTA VIRGINIA RILEY (1913-1992)
Robert Thurman Riley, Jr. (1915-1997)
Rodney Burman Riley (1915-1970)
Rosley Herman Riley (1915-2000)
Samuel Switzer Riley (1919-1982)
Hugh Woodram Riley (1921-2004)
Isabel Carmen Riley (b.1928)
OCCUPATIONS: Teacher, housewife
After nearly 150 years, Carmen Switzer would be the last Switzer of our branch of the family to be born on Switzer Mountain in Botetourt County, Virginia. She first moved to the Carvin's Creek community of Amsterdam when she married Robert Riley, and then to Roanoke City with him and their daughter Araminta before he became a city policeman.
In 1909 she attended a "grammar grade" at Clifton Forge High School, after which she taught at Zion's Hill Community school about five miles from Fincastle, and then at Carvin's Cove. As a teacher in the Cove she lived with John and Ora Riley, where she met John's youngest brother, Robert. Carmen and Robert were married in 1912, and as with most female teachers at the time, she retired from teaching when she got married.