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In December of 1849, Lieutenant Jack Wilkes spent Christmas with the Smedberg family on his way to join the USS Marion. He will be at sea for almost three years in the Pacific. From that year on until 1851, Jeanie spent every summer with the Wilkes family in Washington, DC. During this time she met Stephen A. Douglas; Harriet Lane Johnson, niece of President James Buchanan; Sophie Alexander, Mrs. Andrew Jackson, and General Jack Gibbon.