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As a young child, Ruth Harwood was a sensitive and imaginative little girl with an unusual awareness of the beauty that surrounded her. The second of five children born to Professor James T. Harwood, internationally recognized artist, and Harriet Richards Harwood, Ruth spent most of her youth in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ruth found great beauty and inspiration in the elements of nature, and her parents encouraged her to express, both in poetry and painting, the beauty in which she delighted. In 1920, Ruth received her bachelors degree in English from the University of Utah and went on to complete her Master's Degree in Art at the University of California, Berkeley. During these years she received several awards for her poetry and began to put together a collection of poems published under the title "The Songs From the Lyric Road." This collection was later awarded the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize for the best unpublished group of poems during 1921. Ruth later studied in New York, Paris, and Italy where she became acquainted with many of the great poets and artists of the day. While holding the position of Supervisor of Art at the State Teachers College, Silver City, New Mexico, Ruth received an invitation for membership from the president of the Poetry Society of America, the most distinguished literary group in the country. Among western artists, Ruth was one of the first to use vivid and vibrating colors in her painting. Yet Ruth's most notable achievements were made with her strikingly original work in creative designs which symbolize the "aspirations of the human soul." Ruth Harwood resided for many years in a hill-top cottage in Berkeley, California, which she converted into a workshop. It was from this cottage that she published much of her poetry, and also developed a line of hand-painted greeting cards. Ruth spent a great deal of time traveling across the country exhibiting her art. She was also a much sought after speaker and said to be one of the great orators of the day. On 9 March 1959, Ruth Harwood died in Yuciapia, California. Although she was never considered to be a social person, Ruth did enjoy meeting with people from different walks of life. Her one desire in life was that through her poetry and paintings she would be able to open for others the "vistas" of beauty which had given her so much joy.