From Wikipedia: Mapes grew up with four sisters in Burlington, Washington.Her parents were Republicans.Her father, from whom she was estranged, was an abusive alcoholic. Mapes graduated from Burlington-Edison High School in 1974, and studied communications and political science at the University of Washington. In the 1980s she worked at KIRO-TV in Seattle. There she also met her husband Mark Wrolstad when she was a producer and he was a reporter. They married in 1987.