Ruth May Fox lost her mother when she was just a toddler in England. As a result, her father was compelled to leave her with various family members while he served as a traveling elder for the Church. After immigrating to America in 1865, the fun-loving and mischievous twelve-year-old girl did factory and domestic work for two years to help earn money for the long trip to Utah. When her family was settled there, she went to work in the woolen mill where she operated heavy machinery designed for men, believing she should receive a man’s wage for doing so. She married Jesse W. Fox in 1873, and, over time, they had twelve children. Lacking formal education in her youth, she took college and correspondence courses as an adult. She served in a variety of Church positions and was the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association General President from 1929 to 1937. Her busy life did not prevent her from working energetically for woman suffrage as treasurer of the Utah Woman Suffrage Association and as a member of the Salt Lake County Republican Committee. A charter member of the Utah Woman’s Press Club, she was elected its president in 1897. Fox’s literary efforts include numerous poems published in the Young Woman’s Journal and Improvement Era, song lyrics, and a book of poetry, May Blossoms (1923). Her most familiar work is the Latter-day Saint hymn “Carry On.”
March 1903- Set apart as missionary to attend National Council of Women as a delegate for Y.L.M.I.A.
"At the end of this time I returned home and was sent to Brother John Morgan’s college for four months. Except for some correspondence classes in English and spelling and a summer class in English at the University of Utah about thirty years later, this ended my formal education." -Ruth May Fox, My Story