Ruth Cecelia O'Day, painter and printmaker, was born to George W. and Ruth Lindblad O'Day in Joliet, Illinois on 15 December 1919. Details of her early life and education have not been discovered but it does appear that she was a student of Mauricio Lasansky at the University of Iowa. She married Melvin Herman Schonhorst and they took up residence in Tucson, Arizona. O'Day Schonhorst is listed as a painter but she also produced original prints.

Ruth Cecelia O'Day Schonhorst died in Tucson, Arizona on 11 January 2005.