Marjorie Douglas Rowe was born in 1912 to Herbert L. Douglas and Mary M. Douglas in Brooklyn, New York. At some point between Rowe’s birth and her seventh birthday the family moved west and settled in Spokane, Washington, where she would live for most of her life. She attended Whitman College from 1929-1933, where she was involved with the Delta Delta Delta Sorority.

After graduating from Whitman College, she moved on to obtain a master’s degree in... social administration from Case Western Reserve University of Cleveland, Ohio in 1936, and remained in Cleveland to work through the 1940s. By 1962 she had moved back to Spokane and worked as a supervisor of psychiatric social work at Eastern State Hospital, and later as the superintendent at Interlake School from which she retired in 1982.

Rowe was an active member and served as president of Chapter R of the PEO, as well as being a member of the American Association of University Women, Spokane Women of Rotary, American Association for Mental Deficiency, Phi Beta Kappa and Delta Sigma Rho. She married Richard R. Rowe in Ohio in 1937 and the two had one child together, Richard Rowe Jr. of Spirit Lake, Idaho.