Ruth Johnson was born in 1876 in Warrington, England and immigrated to the United States with her family in the early 1890s. She married Charles C. Hamilton on April 19, 1898 in Chicago, Illinois. Together they had several children, including Ruth Alice. Hamilton was a charter member of the North Shore Church, a one time president of the Wisconsin Synodical Society of the Presbyterian Church, and served as executive secretary of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters and the Women's Suffrage Association. She died April 4, 1954 in Shorewood, Wisconsin.