Martha Parke Custis (1756 – June 19, 1773) was a stepdaughter of George Washington who died from an epileptic seizure at the age of 17, fifteen years before he was elected as the first president of the United States.

Just a few months after their daughter Frances had died, Daniel Parke Custis suddenly became ill. Although Martha summoned the best physicians money could buy, her husband died on July 8, 1757. By all accounts, their seven-year marriage had been a happy one.

Martha Parke Custis was Martha Washington and Daniel Parke Custis's youngest child. Known to the family as Patsy, Custis had a particularly difficult life. Patsy was only a toddler when her mother married George Washington. By the time Patsy was eleven or twelve, she experienced frequent seizures.

Soon after they married on May 15, 1750, Martha moved into Daniel Parke Custis’s home, called White House, on the Pamunkey River in New Kent County, Virginia. The death of Custis’s father the previous November meant that Daniel Parke Custis had …

Daniel Parke Custis was thirty eight years old when he fell in love with the seventeen year old Martha Dandridge and married her on May 15, 1750. During their seven years of marriage, Martha and Daniel Custis had four children.

In September of 1793, Martha Parke Custis and her sister accompanied George Washington to the ceremony for the laying of the Capitol Building’s cornerstone. In 1795 Martha Custis married Thomas Peter. Thomas Peter was the eldest son of Robert Peter.

In colonial Virginia, most women of Martha’s social class met their potential mates through friends and family, or at church, court day, or a ball held at a neighbor’s house. Tradition holds that Martha met her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, at their local Anglican church.