At age 16, she was saved and joined the First Baptist Church at Rush Springs. She graduated from Rush Springs High School in 1952. Marie enrolled in OU School of Nursing, which was a residential program, and graduated in 1955 with a Diploma of Registered Nursing. While at OU, she was very active in starting a BSU program for doctors and nurses. She accepted the call to be a missionary and moved to Shawnee to get her degree from OBU so she could go into missions. She worked as a campus nurse at OBU and in doing so, met Will J Roberts. They married on September 5th, 1957. After they married, she attended Texas Christian University and Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth. Together with her husband, they were appointed missionaries by the International Mission Board in 1962 and served in Kenya for 22 years and Tanzania for 16 years. She homeschooled their four daughters through grade school.

In support of her husband as the local association and the national convention treasurer, Marie performed the bookkeeping and trained the nationals on how to keep books. Her ministry also included seminars for educating the women on nutrition, infant care, and hygiene. When she and her husband moved to Tanzania, she taught in the women’s department at the Southern Baptist Seminary in Arusha and served as the campus nurse. Together with her husband in their last 10 years in Tanzania, they served as itinerant missionaries working in many parts throughout Tanzania.

After retirement, she served alongside her husband when he served as pastor of Willow Baptist Church from 2003 to 2016.

Marie went to be with the Lord on January 16, 2025.

She is survived by her husband, her four daughters that she and her husband raised in Africa, two sons-in-law, seven grandkids, three great-grandkids, one brother, and four sisters- in-law.