page_title: Jessie Ball duPont
section_title: Marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Jessie Ball duPont / Biography / Marriage
caption_attribution_description: {{Alfred I. DuPont, bust portrait, facing left (photograph of a photograph)}}
context_page_description: Jessie Ball duPont was an American teacher, philanthropist and designated a Great Floridian by the Florida Department of State.
context_section_description: Ball duPont had met and befriended Alfred I. duPont when she was 14 and he 34, and they maintained a correspondence thereafter. After the 1920 death of his second wife, they entered a courtship which resulted in marriage on January 22, 1921. The couple made their home in the Nemours Mansion and Gardens in Wilmington, Delaware. Retired from teaching, Ball duPont oversaw maintenance of the family estate, took over raising her husband's daughter, Denise, and began to assist duPont in his business.
  In 1923, duPont hired Edward Ball, one of Ball duPont's four siblings to survive to adulthood. Ball relocated to Delaware to become manager of the Clean Food Products Company and additionally to advise duPont and manage the estate fortune. The arrival of her brother freed Ball duPont from some of her business concerns so that she could dedicate more time to her charities.
  In 1927, the family relocated to Florida, taking up residence in their newly built 58 acres (230,000 m²) estate on the St. John's River, Epping Forest, which was named after the home of Mary Ball Washington, the mother of George Washington, who was Jessie's distant relative. duPont established his main business industry in Jacksonville, with most of his $34 million assets being transferred to his newly formed Almours Securities, Inc. Ball also moved to Florida, and duPont and Ball expanded their business interests in the area, acquiring substantial real estate and buying into Florida National Bank. In 1935, Ball duPont became the director of that bank. Meanwhile, Ball duPont also undertook the preservation of Stratford Hall Plantation, where Confederate General Robert E. Lee had been born. She also renovated and modernized the Lee family residence Ditchley, near Kilmarnock, Virginia. In 1937, she attended the coronation of King George VI.  In 1940, she purchased Hurstville and had the house restored as a residence for her sisters.
caption: Alfred I. du Pont
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