Born Catherine O’Flaherty in 1850, Kate Chopin was raised in St. Louis, Missouri by well-off, socially established parents. An Irish immigrant, her father was a prosperous businessman, while her mother came from the well-respected French community of St. Louis. At the age of 20, Chopin married the son of a successful family in the cotton industry. Together they had six children and lived in New Orleans until eventually moving to the French town of Cloutierville, Louisiana in 1879. There, her husband owned and ran a general store until he died in 1882, at which point Chopin rather unconventionally took over the shop’s operation, thereby becoming a self-sufficient widow.