Mary Anna Randolph Custis was born on October 1, 1807, at Annefield in Clarke County, Virginia, the only surviving child of George Washington Parke Custis and Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis. Through her father she was the step-great-granddaughter of George Washington and a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. Through her mother she belonged to the Fitzhugh and Lee families. She inherited exceptional family prestige, land, and enslaved people. Mary grew up chiefly at Arlington House, the estate her father built overlooking Washington City. Her education was conducted by her mother, tutors, and family associates. She studied reading, writing, French, history, religion, music, drawing, and household management. Deep Episcopal faith and concern for charitable work became central to her identity. Arlington was also a shrine to George Washington. Her father collected Washington relics, hosted visitors, wrote reminiscences, and staged patriotic observances. Mary therefore grew up conscious that her family home carried national symbolic importance. At the same time, the estate operated through the labor of enslaved families, and Mary’s inheritance embedded her in slavery despite her later support for some gradual emancipation efforts. She knew Robert E. Lee from childhood through their related Virginia families. Their courtship developed slowly and encountered some parental hesitation, partly because Lee’s family finances and his father’s reputation were troubled. Mary and Robert married at Arlington in 1831. Before becoming known as Lee’s wife, Mary had been shaped by being an only surviving child, intense Washington family memory, elite private education, religious devotion, artistic interests, plantation responsibility, and a courtship joining two famous but unequal family fortunes. Her early life gave her a strong sense of lineage and duty while also binding her materially to the slaveholding order that defined Arlington.