Ruth Estelle Mills was born on December 5, 1915 in Mount Vernon, New York, to Earl Harrison and Violet Louise Morrison. She had one brother, Earl Harrison Mills, Jr. She graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1932, and from Mount Holyoke College in 1936. In 1937 she began working as a secretary in New York City. She married Frank Shaw, Jr., and had a son, Frank, in 1944. In 1962 she began working for DuPont as a stenographer.