Fluent in French and German, she read in the original languages whenever possible. Though on the surface she appeared to be a conventional society belle, her commonplace book indicates that she gave a great deal of thought to the subject of the independent woman, especially in response to her reading of Madame de Staël, one of her favorite authors. On 9 June 1870 she married Oscar Chopin, a member of a French-Creole family from Natchitoches Parish in northwestern Louisiana. On the way to New York, from which the couple would depart for a three-month honeymoon tour of Germany, Switzerland, and France, Kate Chopin met Victoria Claflin, later Victoria Woodhull, the radical-feminist publisher, stockbroker, spiritualist, and future nominee for president, who according to Chopin's diary advised her "not to fall into the useless degrading life of most married ladies...." After their honeymoon the couple returned to New Orleans, where Oscar Chopin became a prosperous cotton factor. During the twelve and a half years of her married life-nine in New Orleans; three in Cloutierville, Natchitoches Parish--Chopin gave birth to six children: Jean (1871), Oscar (1873), George (1874), Frederick (1876), Felix (1878), and Lelia (1879). Devoting herself to her family and household, she still managed to reconcile the needs of her own being with the expectations of her conventional milieu.
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