Ruth Fröhlich only stayed in Bad Kissingen for a short time, during which time she worked at the Israelite spa hospice on Altenberg. She was born in November 1920 in Unteraltertheim near Würzburg, the youngest child of Samson Fröhlich and his first wife Helene and had two older siblings: Regina (1909 - 2005) and Heinrich (1911 - 2008). The Fröhlich family was a long-established, widely branched Jewish family in the Jewish community of Unteralterheim, whose ancestors are already listed in the matriculation list of 1817.

Her father Samson was a butcher by trade and her mother Helene died in July 1930, when Ruth was not even ten years old. In November 1931, her father married Karolina Linz, who came from Geußenheim, just a few kilometres away.

In June 1937, Ruth Fröhlich went to Bad Kissingen for a spa season and was employed as a kitchen assistant at the Israelite Spa Hospice. She moved back to her home community in October 1937.

Ruth's family decided to flee Germany just in time. The fact that the brother of Samson's second wife Simon Linz was already living in the United States was certainly an advantage. First Ruth's brother Heinrich emigrated to New York on the Queen Mary in August 1937, followed by her older sister Regina with her husband and two children in January 1938, and in August 1938 Ruth, now 18, and her father Samson and his wife Karolina finally arrived in New York harbour, so that the entire family could escape the Nazi tyranny.

In March 1947, Ruth Fröhlich married Hans (John) Joel Stein, who was born in Kitzingen in 1913 and came from her native Lower Franconia.