The Everett Ruess Family photograph collection contains photographs of Everett Ruess, an American poet and artist who disappeared in Utah in 1934, and the Ruess family. Christopher George Ruess (1878-1954), Everett's father, was born in Kansas on December 10, 1878 to William Emil and Catherine Heit Ruess. Stella Knight (1879-1964), Everett's mother, was born on July 9, 1879 in Ohio to William Henry and Ella Joana Waters Knight. Stella Knight and Christopher Ruess married in Los Angeles, California, on April 2, 1905. Together, they had three children: Christella, a daughter who died soon after her birth in 1908, Waldo (1909-2007), and Everett (1914-1934).

Christopher Ruess was a Unitarian minister whose job required the family to move frequently. Stella Knight Ruess was an artist and dancer who was active in arts communities in the various places that the family lived. In addition to their frequent moves, the Ruess family were avid travelers. Waldo Ruess, their older son, embraced traveling as he grew into adulthood. After attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, he studied at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Waldo joined the United States Foreign Service, a job that led him to live and work in 10 countries and travel to 100 more between 1935 and 1958. He was stationed in Tokyo, Algiers, and Moscow during World War II, between 1939 and 1946, where he worked primarily as a cryptographer. Waldo was a conscientious objector to war, and spent his travels attempting to learn about different cultures and build relationships with individuals. In addition to his diplomatic service, Waldo worked for Lockheed in Iceland in the 1950s and spent the latter part of his career working as a purchasing agent for the United States Forest Service in the Los Padres National Forest. Waldo married a Spanish woman named Conchita in the 1950s; the two settled in Santa Barbara, California, where they raised four children. Waldo Ruess died on September 6, 2007.

Stella Ruess passed her interest in the arts to her younger son, Everett, teaching him linoleum block printing. Everett also pursued clay modeling and sketching as a child, and by age 12 he began a literary diary and began composing essays and poems. While Waldo Ruess embraced world travel, Everett was drawn to the American West. Beginning in 1931, he traveled alone by horse or donkey through Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, documenting the structures of Ancestral Puebloans and exploring national parks like Yosemite and Sequoia. In 1934, working with University of California archaeologists, he participated in Hopi religious ceremonies and worked to learn the Navajo language. Everett documented his travels in art, writing, and letters to his family. He was not commercially successful as an artist or writer in his life, and his travels were supported by his parents. In 1934, Everett Ruess disappeared while traveling alone in the Escalante area of the Utah desert.

After Everett's disappearance, Stella Knight Ruess worked to make his writing and art available to a larger audience. She arranged the posthumous publication of Everett's first book, , in 1940. The Ruess family searched for Everett for years, taking regular trips to Utah to search for him and contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to aid them. Christopher died in 1954 and Stella died in 1964. In 1983, a new collection of Everett's prints, poetry, and journals was published titled .