Ruth Le Prade was born on July 20, 1894, near Modesto, California to William and Mary Coward. Her name was Ruth Le Prade Coward until she dropped her last name as a teenager. She moved to Los Angeles around 1913, where she spent the rest of her life. She was discovered by Edwin Markham in 1915 during his travels in Los Angeles. At the time, Le Prade was attending Manual Arts High School. After her graduation from high school, Le Prade attended the University of California, Berkeley, and J.F. Rowny Press published her first volume of poetry, A Woman Free, in 1917. The volume was introduced by Edwin Markham and well-received critically. Le Prade, a pacifist and socialist, met her husband Harold Story while protesting World War I in Southern California. They wed in 1919, upon Story’s release from Camp Kearny. They had one son, Eugene Le Prade Story (1926-1945). After Le Prade and Story divorced, Le Prade retained custody of her son.

The Poets Garden, which began with the naming of trees already in Le Prade’s backyard for poets, was formally dedicated in 1927 by Edwin Markham with the planting of the Song Tree (a sycamore). Le Prade died May 25, 1969 in Los Angeles.