Gov. Andy Beshear poses after his inauguration in December with Bowling Green’s John Ridley (left) and Ridley’s mother, Rita Grace Ridley (center), and sister, Virginia Ridley Stallins.

When Gov. Andy Beshear was 7 years old, Rita Grace Ridley gave him a Bible.

During one of his recent daily 4 p.m. news conferences on COVID-19 in Kentucky, he talked about the loss of life the coronavirus has caused. The 42-year-old governor paused and indicated he knew about grief since he had lost his “second mother” earlier this year.

He was referring to Ridley.

“Other than my parents and grandparents, she had the greatest influence in my life,” he said last week. “She was my ‘second mother’ for a number of years.”

Ridley was director of the Lieutenant Governor’s Mansion in Frankfort when Steve Beshear, a longtime friend of Ridley’s from Dawson Springs, held that office from 1983 to 1987.

For those years, she also frequently looked after Jeff and Andy, the young boys of Steve and Jane Beshear, in the residence when the political couple had to be away. Steve Beshear later became governor, serving from 2007 to 2015. His son, Andy, became governor last December.

None of them ever forgot Ridley, who died Jan. 2. She was 99.

Two funerals for her attracted about 200 people each. One was in Shelbyville, where she had lived the last 14 years of her life – one year with her daughter, Virginia Ridley Stallins, and 13 in a patio home by herself. Another funeral was in her hometown of Dawson Springs in Western Kentucky, where the Ridley and Beshear families had been close for decades.

Present at the Shelbyville funeral were former Gov. Steve Beshear and his wife, first lady Jane Beshear, along with their son, Andy, who was inaugurated less than a month earlier as Kentucky’s 63rd governor, and his wife, first lady Britainy Beshear.

“Andy is always so calm and collected but at the funeral home he looked at me and said he was sorry and he just couldn’t talk,” said Ridley’s daughter, Virginia Ridley Stallins of Shelbyville.

“I told him, honey, that’s all right. Mother loved you boys.”

Jeff and Andy Beshear recall the love Ridley bestowed on them when they were boys in the Lieutenant Governor’s Mansion.

If their parents had to be out late, Ridley read bedtime stories and said prayers with them.

“At that time in our lives, she was our second mother,” said Jeff, an equine veterinarian in Virginia who turned 46 on April 20. “Mom and Dad were so busy and she played games with us, took care of us and did her best to keep us out of trouble.”

On the day Steve Beshear was inaugurated as lieutenant governor, the Beshear boys, brand new to the stately old structure built in 1797 first for governors and then in 1956 for lieutenant governors, got into a bit of trouble.

Ridley came to the rescue.

Jeff recalled that Andy and he were playing in their new home before they were to meet their parents to ride in a carriage that morning in the Inaugural parade.

Jeff said he ran into a third-floor room and slammed the door behind him. It locked and he was not able to get out.

“It was Rita Grace to summon the troopers to get me out,” he said. “She was always there to help.”

Meanwhile, Andy said he accidentally broke a mirror in a room that morning. “Boys will be boys. But Mrs. Ridley got everything under control and got us to the parade.”

The boys’ mother, Jane Beshear, said last week that Ridley was “great” with our sons.

“Steve and I went to the church service on inauguration morning and we were wondering where the boys were to get into the parade,” she said. “I had laid out their clothes and Mrs. Ridley said she would bring them. They finally showed up and we learned that Jeff had slammed a door behind him and got locked in and Andy slammed another door and broke a mirror.

“Mrs. Ridley just said it was an experience and that she would tell me about it later and it was time to get into the parade.”

Jane Beshear recalled that early in their stay at the Lieutenant Governor’s Mansion, “Steve wanted me to go with him one night to an event but Andy, who was so young, about 5, was upset that I was leaving.

“He got a little teary and I told Steve I just couldn’t go and leave him. Well, Mrs. Ridley got my attention and told me that some day the boys would be grown up and gone and I needed to maintain my relationship with my husband or someday I wouldn’t have him.

“Even to me, she was like a surrogate mother.”

‘SHE COULD HAVE BUCKLED AT ANY TIME’

Rita Grace Ridley was born Sept. 24, 1920, in Dawson Springs, in far Western Kentucky. Her father died when she was 18 months old and an 8-year-old brother died in a drowning accident. Her husband died when she was 51 and she never remarried.

“She could have buckled at any time in her life but her strong faith kept on going,” said one of three sons, John Ridley, a financial advisor in Bowling Green.

Rita Ridley and her four children lived on Walnut Street about a block away from the Primitive Baptist Church in Dawson Springs, where Russell Beshear and his brother, Eddie Beshear, were the pastors.

Russell Beshear was the father of Steve Beshear, Kentucky’s governor from 2007 to 2015.

“The Beshears lived not far from us,” said Virginia Stallins. “Steve was a year behind me in school. Every Sunday we all would walk to church together.

“As neighborhood kids, we all would play games together, like ‘Kick the Can.’ It was a caring place. We all were like family. Mother had a party for Steve and Jane to announce their engagement in the late ’60s and we have stayed in touch through the years.”

Ridley recalled small-town life in Dawson Springs in a 1994 interview for the Kentucky Oral History Commission with her mother, Alberta Chesser.

She said Saturday “was the day everybody came to town to shop and to visit with each other. Everyone knew each other or a relative.”

The local drug store “was the meeting place for its sundaes and Black Derby ice cream.”

Ridley graduated from Dawson Springs High School in 1938. She attended Western Kentucky State Teachers College in 1939, and married her high school sweetheart, Travis Ridley, in 1940. He was an insurance supervisor and was mayor twice of Dawson Springs.

In the late 1950s, Rita Ridley started an early childhood development center in her home. Later she started the first public kindergarten at Dawson Springs Independent Schools.

During the summer months she mentored young adults as the dining room supervisor at Pennyrile State Park. One of her most challenging occupations for 15 years was teacher and supervisor at Outwood State Hospital for special needs adults.

Her obituary said there always was a place at her table for a guest and she could quickly fix a banquet for 20 or more in short notice.

‘SHE TAUGHT US ABOUT LIFE’

At 64, Rita Grace Ridley got a phone call in Dawson Springs from the state’s newly elected lieutenant governor, Steve Beshear, said her daughter.

He said he wanted her to oversee his new residence in Frankfort. She told him she could not leave Dawson Springs because she was taking care of her mother.

“So Steve told Mother to bring her mother with her to Frankfort,” Stallins said. “And that’s what she did while Steve was lieutenant governor.”

Ridley already was fond of Steve and Jane Beshear. At the Lieutenant Governor’s Mansion, she fell in love with their boys, Jeff and Andy.

“She helped us with our homework and many other things,” said Andy. “But she taught us about life. She was very special and so good as a role model with her strong faith and devotion to others.”

Limited then to only one term as lieutenant governor, Steve Beshear entered a crowded Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1987 and lost to millionaire bookstore owner Wallace Wilkinson. Steve Beshear’s political career in Frankfort was over until he returned as governor 20 years later.

Ridley and her mother returned to Dawson Springs, where she trained students for several years at the Hopkins County Vocational School in the hospitality field.

“All her life, Mother had a positive influence on people. She reached all ages, able to get along with all generations,” said son John. “That’s what her strong faith taught her and she certainly practiced it: get along with each other.”

Ridley’s hospitality career continued into her 70s as she converted her family home into a local bed and breakfast.

When Steve Beshear became governor in 2007, Ridley often visited his family at the Governor’s Mansion.

“When mother came into the mansion, Steve would cry out, ‘The Queen Mother has arrived.’ She loved that,” said Stallins.

‘A GLORIOUS NIGHT’

Ridley strongly supported Steve Beshear in his political endeavors and did the same for his son, Andy Beshear, when he successfully ran for attorney general in 2015 and for governor in 2019.

Andy Beshear invited her to his private swearing-in ceremony as governor at midnight last Dec. 10 in the Governor’s Mansion.

“I called mother about this and told her it was going to be at midnight but she said she would not miss it for anything,” Stallins said. “We had to be there by 10:30 p.m. and mother saw to it that we were.

“She went in her wheelchair and she was the hit of the party. Everybody knew ‘Rita Grace.’ ”

Stallins said she had not seen her mother stand up by herself in a long time “but she was in the front row that night at the mansion and stood up six times by herself to honor the new governor and his family.”

After the swearing-in ceremony and after all the media had left, the Ridleys stayed around.

The new governor wanted to have a private moment with his “second mother.”

“Andy had told mother earlier he had something he wanted her to see,” said the daughter.

“He came over, kneeled down beside her and told her that he had used a family Bible to be sworn in, and on top of it, where he placed his hand, he had the Bible she had given him as a boy years ago.

“He asked if she would like to read the inscription in it but she said she could not see that well. He read to her that it said it was given to him by Rita Grace Ridley.”

The governor recalled last week that he had carried that Bible with him throughout his life. “I even took it to college with me,” he said.

About a week before last December’s inauguration, Beshear said he picked up the Bible on his desk and thought about showing it to Ridley at his private swearing-in ceremony.

“We both were smiling that night,” Beshear said. “I think she appreciated it.”

On their way back home to Shelbyville at nearly 2 a.m. after the private inauguration, Stallins said her mother commented on the evening and how proud she was of all the Beshears.

“She said it had been a glorious night.”