When they were loading the boats a steward put Richard and Marion in lifeboat #11 and then informed everyone that the lifeboat was full. Nellie began to plead so that she would be allowed to join her children. She was allowed in but Ruth was left behind. Nellie yelled for her to get in another and she eventually got into #13.

After the sinking, Ruth gave her blanket to one of the stokers and was now shivering in the night air.

Ruth later attended high school and college in Ohio. Then, she became a High School teacher in Kansas and married former classmate Daniel Blanchard. She divorced him 20 years later. When Ruth was younger she refused to talk about the Titanic, but did eventually when she was retired. In March of 1990, she went on her first cruise since 1912 to Mexico. She died later that year at the age of 90 and her remains were scattered over the Titanic's resting place.