In April 1900, Sinclair went to Lake Massawippi in Quebec to work on a novel, renting a small cabin for three months and then moving to a farmhouse where he was reintroduced to his future first wife, Meta Fuller (1880-1964). A childhood friend descended from one of the First Families of Virginia, she was three years younger than him and aspired to be more than a housewife, so Sinclair instructed her in what to read and learn. Though each had warned the other against it, on October 18, 1900, they married. Having used abstinence as their main form of birth control, the couple became pregnant the following year. Despite Meta's several unsuccessful attempts to terminate the pregnancy, the child, David, was born on December 1, 1901. Meta and her family tried to convince Sinclair to give up writing and get "a job that would support his family."