She was the daughter of John Thomson,[2] furniture packer from Logie Pert in Forfarshire[3] and later a minister in the Church of Scotland[1] and his wife Ann Youngson, from Peterhead.

[2][3] The family continued to live in Cumberland Street until 1892, when they rented a flat in the newly built Comely Bank Avenue in Edinburgh.

[1] The couple bought a house on Longwood Drive in Morgan Park, a suburb of Chicago, and named it Comely Bank, after the area in Edinburgh where Jean had lived as a child.

[2][3] A month after their marriage, Paul was elected President of the national Rotary organisation, with Chesley Perry as secretary.

[4] Jean recalled "We wives played a very small part at convention in those days; our young men were struggling to find themselves.