Albert Gordon Dutch Roth was born to Charles Albert and Annie (Evans) Roth on September 20, 1890 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He had one sister, Mabel Irene, who married Louis Edmund Meyer on November 21, 1923. Dutch Roth spent most of his professional career as a pipefitter at the Southern Railway's Coster Shop and John Sevier Yard, but his true love was the Great Smoky Mountains. He hiked nearly every weekend (including many overnight trips) for several decades. Roth was also an avid photographer and brought his Kodak 122 (complete with heavy tripod and flash powder pan) on most of these journeys. He was well known for his willingness to venture up trees and off trails to obtain the perfect shot; indeed, he once fell out of a tree and took a picture on the way down. Because Roth remained an amateur, his work was never widely distributed.

Dutch Roth married Mary Frances Watrous (known fondly as Dutchess) in February of 1918, and the couple had three children: Charles Albert, Margaret Ann, and Mary Frances (who died in infancy). Mary had three siblings: Benjamin Arthur, Margaret (who married Howard Rogers), and Retta Lucille (who married George Rice Fisher). Mary Roth was a talented singer, and she and her brother often sang at meetings of the Welsh society as well as at multiple churches. She also shared her husband's passion for hiking and had hiked all of the major peaks between Davenport Gap and Deals Gap at the time of her death.

After Dutch Roth retired from the railroad in 1957, he and his family moved to Gatlinburg where he could be near his beloved mountains. He continued to hike avidly and to work for the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church and its successor, the New Covenant Presbyterian Church, as had four previous generations of his family. Mary Roth died on December 10, 1969 and Dutch Roth followed on May 10, 1974. Both were buried in Greenwood Cemetery.