Dr. Martin Ruter, were among the most highly educated and eminent ministers of the Methodist Church, who, at an early day, brought the foundations of that religion to the valley of the Mississippi River.

Her earliest years were divided between New Albany, Indiana and Indianapolis, and her later academic studies were carried on at the Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati.

[2] Like Pope, "she lisped in numbers;" and her earliest writings were dedicated to the Muses; but her love of verse, which grew with her years, was nourished as a secret passion, and no one ever saw or heard a line of her metrical composition until she had nearly reached womanhood and was about to be graduated by her Alma Mater.

[3] William Ruter Springer, the couple's only child, was born a few years later and went on to graduate from a private military academy in Virginia in 1880.

[6] She and her husband left for a two-year European tour in 1868 to improve her health, which at the time had been described as "feeble"; a condition which persisted until her death, September 7, 1904.