Ruth Dabney Smith, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, was the daughter of John W. Smith and Ruth Heywood. Smith was musically talented, being educated at Washington Seminary (Atlanta, Ga.), the Chicago Musical College (Illinois), where she was a student in 1926, Syracuse University (New York), from which she received a bachelor's degree in music in 1934, and the Juilliard Summer School (New York, New York). Smith performed numerous piano and violin recitals in Atlanta with her first professional performance being in the spring of 1929. Smith was a violin instructor at Washington Seminary (Atlanta, Ga.), Agnes Scott College (Decatur, Ga.), Bessie Tift College (Forsyth, Ga.), and Transylvania Music School Camp (Brevard, North Carolina). She also instructed many children in private violin lessons, having the children perform public recitals. She also shared her interest in music with a much wider audience by writing articles for the North Side Home News, a neighborhood newspaper in Atlanta. Smith was also involved when the Atlanta Philharmonic Society was organized in October 1931 as the Amateurs' Symphony and Choral Society, in which she participated as a member of the string quartet. She remained with the society until the mid-1950s as concertmaster of the orchestra and as first violin. In 1935 Smith also performed a solo with the Buckhead Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Enrico Leide. In 1952 Smith married Roger Wolcott Allen, and in the late 1950s she performed with the Marietta Community Orchestra.