Marie Margaret Orndorff Leist was a native of Pocahontas County, born in Arbovale in 1901, one of nine children of Jesse Brown Orndorff and Cora Ella Ervine. She married Stanley P. Leist of Ronceverte in 1925 and upon his death in 1934 opened a specialty shop in Ronceverte to provide for and educate her four children.

Marie Leist was a successful businesswoman and received many honors for years of service to her friends and community. Her long held dream was to bring worldwide recognition to Pearl S. Buck and her birthplace. Serving as State Chairman of the Pearl Buck Home Restoration Committee and later as the President of the Pearl Buck Birthplace Foundation she worked tirelessly with Pearl Buck and the WV Federation of Women's Clubs to restore the birthplace, which opened to the public in May 1974. Marie Leist died in 1976.

Historic Preservation Officer, B.J. Gudmundsson, will head up the Archive Project. Assisted by the staff and board of the Birthplace Foundation, the work will encompass digitizing the collection, preparing it for public access and creating a safe archival system for storage and retrieval.

"The Pearl Buck Archives is a perfect example of the importance of preserving our information heritage," says Gudmundsson. "A word-wide audience of researchers will be drawn to the collection as parts of it become available on the Internet for the very first time. People will then be aware of the Museum's archives, and the staff will be able to accommodate visitors searching for documents and information."