Josephine first met
Robert Peary in 1885 while she was attending dancing school. They got engaged in 1886, at which time she resigned from the Smithsonian Institution. She married him on August 11, 1888. She often accompanied him on his northern travels, where she traveled farther north over the ice fields than any white woman had before. Her eagerness to explore the world prompted her to accompany her husband on the
Peary expedition to Greenland of 1891–1892. She accompanied him on six of his Arctic expeditions and was considered a First Lady of the Arctic. While they were married, in 1909, Robert Peary claimed to be the first to have reached the geographic
North Pole. At that time, Josephine stayed home on
Eagle Island in Casco Bay, Maine, which Robert bought in 1877. Josephine and Robert had three children:
Marie Ahnighito Peary born in 1893, who became known as "Snow Baby", was born less than thirteen degrees from the North Pole, a second daughter, Francine, born in 1899 who died at 7 months, and a son, Robert E. Peary Jr born in 1903. Although both surviving children were Arctic adventurers, Robert Jr. became a construction engineer. They also had three grandchildren, Edward Peary Stafford, Robert E. Peary III, and Peary Diebitsch Stafford. ==Later life and death==