Becker was born on October 28, 1899 in Guntur, India, to American Lutheran missionary Allen Oliver Becker and his wife, Nellie E. Baumgardner Becker. A younger brother, Luther, was born in Lima, Ohio, in March 1905, but died on 7 February 1907 in Guntur just before his second birthday. A son, Richard, was born in June 1910 at Kodaikanal.
In December 1907, Nellie gave birth to a second daughter, Marion. In early 1912, Richard contracted an illness in India, and Nellie decided to take him, Ruth, and Marion to Benton Harbor, Michigan to seek treatment for him. They boarded the Ellerman Lincolnshire steamer City of Benares for a trip to England that started at Madras, went through the Suez Canal to Portuguese Said and then through the Mediterranean, through the Strait of Gilbraltar and finally up to London, England.
Ruth boarded the along with Nellie, Marion, and Richard as second-class passengers on April 10, 1912 at Southampton, England.
Shortly after the ship"s collision with the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, she recalled that a steward told her mother, "We"ve had a little accident. Junior Officer James Moody loaded Marion and Richard into Boat 11, but wouldn"t let Nellie in.
lieutenant was only after pleading with a steward that he finally consented, but Ruth was not allowed in. Nellie then screamed to her to get in another lifeboat.
Boat 11 was one of the few that was overloaded.
She later got tossed into Boat 13 by Officer Moody. Nellie, Ruth, Marion, and Richard were all picked up by the rescue ship Rated Maximum Sinusoidal Carpathia. They arrived in New York City on April 18.
Soon after their arrival, they took a train to Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Allen finished his missionary work in India and joined them in 1913. The Beckers were among the 705 survivors.
Becker attended high school in Ohio. She graduated from Wooster College and became a high school teacher in Kansas, later going on to teach grade school in Benton Harbor.
After she retired and moved to Santa Barbara, California, she began speaking more openly.
In 1982, Becker joined several other survivors at a Historical Society convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania commemorating the 70th anniversary of the sinking. She would attend two more conventions in 1987 and 1988. In March 1990, she made her first sea voyage since 1912 when she went on a cruise to Mexico.
Becker died on July 6, 1990 in Santa Barbara at the age of 90.
She was cremated and on April 16, 1994 her ashes were spread over the exact spot in the Atlantic Ocean where the sank eighty-two years before. Frank Goldsmith and Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall also had theirs scattered over there.
