The Strange Marriage of Jean Ferris and Irving Drought Harris

By 1935 the marriage between Jean Ferris and her husband Irving Drought Harris was finally over and they had separated. In May of that year Irving filed for divorce from Jean and a few months later she filed a counter claim.
Amazingly they had previously battled in the Supreme Court in January 1932 when, in an earlier separation, Jean had taken their baby son, John, to live with her at her Uncle Rudolph Spreckels'  New York apartment. Irving Harris took out a writ of Habeas Corpus to force her to produce the child in court. Jean tried to prevent him seeing the boy whose full name was John Wakefield Harris.
After their marriage at The Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York, Jean and Irving had lived together in New York. In November 1931 Jean left him and went to live with her Uncle Rudolph at the Ritz Carlton. Irving tried to see his son on numerous occasions but eventually had been told to settle the case in court.
This 'spat' was clearly over by October 1932 when Jean and Irving bought the Chateau de Doumy near Pau, in the Basses Pyrenees, France. In September of the following year 1933, Elizabeth Marshall Harris 'Mimi' was born but by April 1935 the marriage had finally crumbled. 'Volatile' seems too mild a word to describe this relationship!
Nancie arrived to look after Mimi in October 1937. By this time her older brother John was living with his Father in the USA. Irving Harris had managed to get custody of John, and flown back to the states with the five year old boy.
I don't know if Mimi had any contact with her brother John after that or even if Jean saw her son. The volatile marriage had become a war!
Mimi was four when Nancie arrived in Paris to take up her post. She wasn't an easy child to cope with, which wasn't surprising, given her family circumstances. Nancie would take her to the manege for her riding lessons and sometimes to the Scots Kirk where the Reverend Donald Caskie was Minister. He took the young Scots woman under his wing and introduced her to lots of other Scots. Later he would become famous as The Tartan Pimpernel, helping British airmen escape from France.