Rita (Hylick) Steuer was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1921. She lived in Kearney, New Jersey, for several years as a young child, until her family moved back to Brooklyn. There they resided on Pearl Street in the Downtown neighborhood of Brooklyn. She attended PS 12, Nathan Hale Junior High School, and Girls Commercial High School. Her father was of Bohemian descent and her mother was of Irish descent. Her grandmother ran a boardinghouse where Filipino men that were employed at the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard resided. Subsequently, several of Steuer's aunts married Filipino men. At age twenty one, she married Fred Steuer, an American who was raised by an aunt in a Filipino-American household. The couple lived in Bellrose, New York (Long Island), had one son, Louis. Later in life Steuer relocated to Florida. She passed away in September 2013.