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June Evelyn Bronson Cleaver is Ward Cleaver's wife and the mother of his sons, Wally and Theodore, "The Beaver". June grew up in or near Mayfield and went to boarding school where she captained the basketball team and appeared as George Washington in a school play. As a child, she was in a class taught by Mrs. Rayburn, the principal of Beaver's school, and, at one time, was forced by her father to spend her savings on galoshes rather than the opal ring she wanted in a jeweler's window. June spent summers with, and was raised principally by, her very proper Aunt Martha, a character who makes a few appearances on the show. June typically leaves the matter of disciplining the boys to her husband and supports him in his decisions. June is the typical housewife of the late 1950s. She aspires to nothing more than being a good wife and mother. Although she has a bit of a social life outside the house attending weddings or her sons' school activities, she is chiefly seen frosting cakes in the kitchen, serving flapjacks, making sandwiches, or engaged in lady-like occupations like arranging flowers or reading glossy women's magazines. She sometimes has household help but when she does take on the housework, she wears high heels, chic frocks, and a pearl necklace. The necklace was purportedly worn to cover a surgical scar on Billingsley's throat. Leave It to Beaver was told from a child's point of view and, as a result, any problems June and her husband may have had as a married couple were never examined.

Ward is husband to June and father to Wally and "Beaver". He grew up on a farm in Shaker Heights (an actual location in Ohio) and dated June as a youth. The couple attended State college together. He served as an engineer with the Seabees during WWII in the Pacific islands. Ward has a white collar job in a corporation with offices in Mexico and New York. The exact nature of his duties are never specified.. He wears a suit to work, carries a briefcase, has a secretary, and in one episode is involved in a women's marketing survey. His boastful co-worker Fred Rutherford tries his patience time and again. Ward is called upon in almost every episode to lecture his sons on their misbehavior and to dole out punishments such as pulling weeds or living for a week without television. Ward's globe-trotting Uncle Billy appears in a few episodes, making June uncomfortable with his descriptions of a vagabond lifestyle. Ward plays golf at a nearby country club and attends weddings, barbecues, and his sons' school plays and baseball games.

Wally is twelve-years-old when the show opens and is a good student, a good athlete and good son although he sometimes plays a part in his brother's misadventures. Wally often acts as a facilitator between Beaver and his parents, putting their messages into kidspeak for Beaver and keeping June and Ward apprised of Beaver's thoughts, feelings, and plans. As the series progressed, Dow grew into an attractive young man and episodes focused on his dating life, his jobs, and his first car. Beaver was relegated to the background in such episodes.