Ruth was born in Union, Illinois, and attended Union College in Nebraska. She taught elementary school in Missouri and Kansas and then taught piano at Enterprise Academy in Kansas from 1925 to 1932, Indiana Academy from 1932 to 1936, and Mount Vernon Academy in Ohio from 1936 to 1940. During the time her husband served as business manager at Emmanuel Missionary College from 1945 to 1954, she played the role of Aunt Sue, a primary character in Your Story Hour, a pioneering children's program.

The idea for the program started with an outreach effort in 1947 in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where each weekend a story hour was held for neglected children in differing locations. The success of that project led to the idea of presenting a storytelling program for children on radio, one encouraged by H. M. S. Richards, Sr., founder of the Voice of Prophecy broadcast.

The first radio broadcast aired in 1949 and featured two storytellers, Uncle Dan and Aunt Sue. The half-hour broadcast was divided into two segments, the first a Bible story, the second a story told by Aunt Sue that illustrated the principles emphasized in the Bible story. The program was a success and within two years was being broadcast on five stations in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. It is now broadcast by thousands of stations in thirty countries.

In 1954 the Lovells moved to the Chicago area, where he served for the next three years as director for the construction and expansion program of the Hinsdale Sanitarium and Hospital, now the Adventist Hinsdale Hospital. They retired in Oregon and were living in Springfield when Ruth died, at age 82.

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