Ruth Moore Ewing, born about 1800 in North Carolina, was one of Liberty's first citizens, arriving with her grandfather Andrew Robertson before the area became a town. In 1824 she married neighboring farmer John D. Ewing, and as they raised their three children, Chatham, Robertson, and Margaret, they grew flax and wove it into linen. Ruth started one of Liberty's first schools, teaching her own children and those from nearby farms, and she sponsored students whose families could not afford tuition. Although the school building was destroyed and rebuilt three times, the school continued to thrive until 1950, when it was annexed by Liberty School District; its final location was on the northeast corner of Ruth Ewing Road and present-day Claybrooke Drive. She also started a Sunday School in the same building, and with leaders of Second Baptist Church she officially formed the Ruth Ewing Sunday School, which flourished for more than 100 years before its members became the founding congregation of South Liberty Baptist Church in 1956. In her later years she was known to all as Grandma Ewing, and when she died in 1866 she left a legacy of resilience in the community she had helped establish. The Ruth Ewing School also served the close-knit south Liberty community as a gathering place for social and cultural events, and the road in front of it came to be known as Ruth Ewing Road, a name it still bears. Former student Robert S. Withers later called her a woman of culture and refinement and of deep religious convictions.