Ford (Ruth) is born in Boston.

The daughter of West Indian immigrants, Ruth Ford grows up in the South End, graduates from Girls High School and the Boston Clerical School, and begins work for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health on October 1, 1946. Ford , works initially as a clerk-typist, and subsequently rises through the ranks to become director of billing for the Massachusetts Bureau of Substance Abuse Services. An avid tennis player, she is one of the founders of the Sportsmen’s Tennis Club in 1961, and becomes the longest-serving state employee in Massachusetts history when she retires on October 30, 2015.