Mrs. Spruill graduated from the Presbyterian Hospital of the Philadelphia School for Nurses on April 8, 1942, under the name Marian Elizabeth Cooper. She became a Registered Nurse in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on May 20, 1942. She served as a United States Army nurse during World War II. 

The MOAA Scholarship Fund was named as a beneficiary of her estate. A designated scholarship was established in her name upon her death in 1985.