This is the memory Palace.
I'm Nate dimeo.
There were chips in the china and that wasn't going to fly.
And let's talk about the china first.
Though the dishes themselves didn't seem to have been Josephine's primary concern,
it was good china, dating back, it appears,
to the 1670s, which even in the latter half of the 1800s when the China was being chipped,
made it plenty old.
The set was a treasured heirloom in the respected Ohio family into which Josephine Garris was born.
A family of successful merchants and craftspeople.
Her great grandfather was an important figure in the development of steamships.
And so when at 19,
Josephine was introduced to a handsome 27 year old man of even greater means,
a budding captain of industry,
it all seemed quite natural for her to ascend to the role of society wife,
a woman of leisure, a thrower of parties, a connoisseur of life's finer things.
Upon taking the name of her husband, John Cochran,
Josephine added an E to that name
because it seems it seemed more European and therefore more appropriate for a woman of her leveled up social class.
But there were chips in the china.