Maria was born in Pontresina, Upper Engadine, Switzerland. Her father died when she was 2 years old. She immigrated to the US in 1892 with her widowed mother and her 4 brothers. Relatives of her mother already lived there. Her mother married George Staeheli and had another 3 children. Maria was educated in Minneapolis schools and considered one of St. Paul's pioneer families.

Of the lutheran faith, she married Arthur Joseph Godbout in 1906 and was widowed in 1918 due to the flu epidemic. They had one son, Marlowe Philip "Lefty" Godbout. For a time he and his mother lived with her stepfather and her 3 halfsiblings Valentine, George Jr. and Margaret, whom Lefty was raised with and very close to. 

Later Maria married Edward Quick and and a few years later she divorced. 

She moved to Butte, Montana in 1962 to live with her son.

Maria died in 1964.