Margaret was born on February 18, 1892, in Dallas, Texas, the only child of Gross R. Scruggs and Mary S. Price. She came from a well-established family who were proud of their American lineage, which included the 1652 Governor of Maryland Robert Brooke and former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln. She married Raymond Carruth on June 6, 1912, and they had one son, Walter Scruggs Carruth, nearly two years later. Their only daughter, Marianne, died from bronchial pneumonia in 1918 when she was still a child.
