Otho Settle Ross was born on June 26, 1897, in Durham, North Carolina. Ross was drafted into military service during World War I on September 6, 1918. Because he was drafted relatively late in the conflict, he was honorably discharged on December 7, 1918, just one month following the armistice of November 11. He later joined the Durham Machine Gun Company, a unit of the North Carolina national guard, and deployed with that company to Alamance County in July 1920 to protect three Black men wrongfully accused of sexual assault from a lynch mob. He died in Durham on October 5, 1961.