This is the memory palace. I'm Nate the Maugh.

Dick Christian lived in Charles City, Virginia, where his family had lived in an unbroken chain

since their arrival on American shores, nearly a hundred years before America declared independence.

As a son of an old family with old money, Dick Christian owned a large farm not far from

the Chikahamni River, but at one point, as happens from time to time even to those born

to wealth, he fell into debt and thus had to raise money to meet his financial obligations.

In 1859, there was an auction in which he sold off some of his extra things.

Clara Baship was one of those things, as was her daughter Patience, who was then 12 years

old, a bright little girl, as her mother would describe her in 1892 to a newspaper reporter

for the New York world. A bright little girl. She may have said more when she was interviewed

for the story. She may have gone on and on about her daughter, and that was just the

quote the reporter chose to use for issues of space or style or clarity. But maybe that

was all she said. The phrase that sprang to mind when she thought of Patience. The one

Clara clung to, that somehow conjured whatever memories she still retained those years

later, of her daughter's face, and her voice, and her presence, her walk, the feeling of

her girl's hair and her fingers, the weight of her in her arms, the smell of the back

for neck, all of the ineffable everything that can never fit into a newspaper quote.

This bright little girl was one of the things sold at auction to pay off the debts accrued

by Dick Christian. There's another quote in the paper from Clara Bashup in 1892 describing

a day in her life in 1859.

"'When we were taken into the marketplace to be sold,' she said.

"'I prayed that wherever we might go, we would go together.'

...