Marjel was born in California, but her family soon moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where she spent the next 25 years. She attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks for several years and later met her husband, John. They moved to North Carolina, where they have lived for the the last 42 years, and were blessed with five children. Among various jobs she has had, she says her greatest joy was working in the school system for the last 16 years of her career. Ten of those years were with Special Education and the last 6 years were teaching corrective reading in middle school. After retirement she was able to focus more on photography, which enabled her to join several art guilds. She says she has met some wonderful artists and it was through one of these ladies that she was introduced to glass art. She was immediately fascinated and it soon became her favorite medium of expression. She loves creating beautiful pieces of art from broken glass, and it shows in her extraordinary work. .
