Josephine Breimayer, the second known child of Ferdinand and Agata Bauer Breimayer, was born in Freedom Twp, Washtenaw Cty, Michigan, in 1861 - see the family history in their Findagrave memorials for a listing of her siblings and relatives.

Her baptismal record from St. Mary's Catholic Church, Manchester, Michigan, lists Josephine Mahlenbrei (interred in Lansing, MI) as her godmother and Carl Bauer, her uncle, as godfather. Her father Ferdinand Breimayer was best man at the 1854 wedding of Josephine Mahlenbrei and Stephen Reck (Rek) in Buffalo, NY, that took place shortly after they and Agata Bauer Breimayer emigrated from Germany. The first two Reck children were born in St. Thomas, Ontario and the third Reck child was born in Ann Arbor in 1861. It appears that the Breimayer and Reck families resided perhaps together in St. Thomas, Ontario until moving to Michigan, and that Josephine Breimayer was named after Josephine Mahlenbrei.

The Breimayer family resided in Freedom Twp. Washtenaw Cty from 1859 to some time before October, 1877, when the farmstead at 3321 Hawley Hwy was purchased and they moved there. There is a reference in Freedom Twp history to Josephine being paid for cleaning the Freedom Twp public school that they attended. There is little family history of Josephine's early life before her marriage to John B. Fisher about 1880.

The Fisher family owned the neighboring farm on Hawley Highway, and the two families were related through this marriage as well as the later marriage in 1899 of Mary Magdalene "Mamie" Kopp (the daughter of Carolyn "Carrie" Fisher Kopp, sister of John B. Fisher) and Anthony C. Breimayer, Josephine's younger brother. The two families cooperated in farming, sharing households when necessary, and maintaining a corduroy road extending to M-91 to shorten the trip to Belding or St. Mary's Catholic Church in Miriam.

For a time before her death, Crystal Helen Reeves Breimayer, wife of Ronald Joseph Breimayer and their eldest son stayed with Josephine and cared for her. Also residing on the farm were her son Joseph Lewis Fisher and his wife Blanche Sybil and their child Althea Fisher. According to an obituary of John B. Fisher, a daughter Emma Fisher was married to Bert Hunsicker of Decatur, Indiana.