She once said as soon as she met John N. Mitchell, she was "impressed with his suaveness and intellect," and the couple married on December 30, 1957, settling in Rye, New York. John worked as a lawyer in Manhattan, earning a year, and the couple purchased a home on the grounds of the Apawamis Club. On January 10, 1961, the couple had a daughter, Martha Elizabeth, whom they nicknamed Marty. They enrolled their daughter in Stone Ridge Country Day School in Bethesda, Maryland, despite not being Roman Catholics, because of Mitchell's belief that "the Roman Catholic schools are about the only ones that have discipline."