Known as Tod to her family, Mary was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia on June 17, 1907.

[1] Her maternal grandfather was George B. Roberts, a former president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

[1] Tod attended the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia and studied at the Sorbonne in France, but didn't graduate, instead returning to Philadelphia where she made her debut and became active in the Junior League.

[1] On June 23, 1930, Mary married Nelson Rockefeller, a grandson of John D. Rockefeller, at St. Asaph's Episcopal Church in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, with a reception at the home of her parents, a few days after Nelson had graduated from Dartmouth College.

They had five children:[2][3] Mary divorced her husband on March 16, 1962 in Reno, Nevada on grounds of extreme mental cruelty.