Ralph Waldo Fuller was born May 28, 1896 in East Jordan, Michigan to Wilbur and Laura Fuller. He grew up in East Jordan. In grade 8, he was elected the class treasurer.

Ralph joined the National Guard prior to World War 1. He was among the group who started the Charlevoix State Militia, being selected as the corp musician. He played the trumpet. He later became a painter like his father, and married Sylvia Mapes in 1917 when he was 20 years of age.

Ralph remarried five years later to Dorothy Williams, a teacher, on January 9, 1922. Ralph and Dorothy had three children and relocated to Traverse City where Ralph made cabinets at a planing mill. Ralph and Dorothy later moved to Suttons Bay where Ralph was the Assessor of the village for two terms.

In 1940 Ralph resided in the Tuberculosis Hospital. He was still a patient in 1942. At the age 54, Ralph died from pneumonia and heart ailment on October 6, 1950 in East Jordan.