Jean attended a finishing school in Paris and the following year, aged nineteen,, being a ward of court, asked for permission to visit her Spreckels relatives in the USA. This was granted and she travelled to America with Josephine Grove (nee Raiman) as her chaperone. She stayed with Claus Spreckels junior for a few months and then went to stay with Rudolph Spreckels at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York. While she was there she met Irving Drought Harris, a young architect, who had been married before, according to the US census for 1920 for San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas. Whether he told Jean this we do not know but by the time she came home to England, not long afterwards, she was engaged to him. She was still only nineteen so it must have caused her stepfather and guardian, Arthur Hutton, some concern. History seemed to be repeating itself as she followed in her Mother's shoes. Being an heiress made her very attractive, no doubt!
A marriage settlement was prepared, under the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery in England and the couple were married on October 19th 1929 at The Church of The Heavenly Rest, in New York City. They made their home in New York and their first child, a son, John Wakefield Harris, was born there on 21st September 1930.
The marriage appears to have been a 'stormy' one. The couple would separate and then get back together again. In 1932 they bought a French chateau near Pau, called Le Chateau de Doumy.
Eleven months later their second child, Elizabeth Marshall Harris (known as Mimi) was born. Clearly some form of 'rapprochement' had taken place.
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