Born in the Alsace region of France, she immigrated to the United States with her family and trained as a nurse at Bellevue Hospital in New York.

[2] She requested of her family that she lead an independent life; alongside her sister, she enrolled in a training program for nurses at Bellevue Hospital.

[2] According to family lore,[3] she refused to have a wedding ring, deeming it a symbol of women's enslavement and suggested that a watch would "be more suitable".

[2] Unable to afford a trip to Hartford to arrange professional portraits of their children, Marie purchased a view camera with money she earned by sewing and knitting garments.

[2] In addition to her portraiture, Kendall took many outdoor photographs, depicting landscapes, blooming flowers, waterfalls, and country scenes of Litchfield County.

[2] Kendall entered camera club competitions[1] and submitted three framed collections of her photography for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

[1][2] Inspired by a booklet from the Columbian Exposition, Kendall later produced the 1900 Glimpses of Norfolk that included photographs of summer homes as a souvenir for visitors.

[1] Aside from her photography business, Kendall also ran a boarding house called Edgewood Lodge, a sewing school and taught nutrition to local families.

[1] Sometime after World War I, Kendall destroyed some 30,000 of the glass-plate negatives she had accumulated,[1] selling the glass for one cent a piece and only preserving around 500 of them.

[2] The Norfolk Historical Society holds over 3000 of Kendall's prints, hundreds of glass-plate negatives, and photo albums she put together.