Rachel Hennefer was born in the western Utah frontier town of Henefer in 1861. She married Orson O. Richins when she was twenty years old. Six months after her wedding she became a plural wife when Orson married Caroline Fawcett. In the fall of 1882 Orson was indicted for polygamy and began a cat-and-mouse game with the federal marshals to avoid arrest.

Rachel moved first to Mesa, Arizona and then to northern Mexico to avoid confrontation with the federal officers. While in Colonia Diaz, Chihuahua, Mexico (one of the LDS Colonies in Mexico), Orson’s second wife, Caroline Fawcett passed away, leaving three motherless children. Rachel took them into her home and mothered them as her own children. Consequently, all twelve children in that household grew to be very close to each other. Orson thereafter married again—a widow named Sarah Amanda Harper with two daughters.

Years later, during the Mexican Revolution, Orson and Rachel were forced to move again—this time to southwestern New Mexico, where they lived out their lives. Rachel is buried in Virden, New Mexico.