Alice Cogswell Bemis: A Sketch by a Friend

								

herself chose it, as she wanted him to have this special kind of
training that could not be found nearer home. In the second year of his
absence he was taken suddenly ill with pneumonia. His parents were
summoned at once, and his father arrived before his death, but his
mother could not reach St. Louis till some hours later. The loss of the
little daughter Lucy, who had died in Newton of scarlet fever, was still
fresh in her memory when the new sorrow came. This was borne
wonderfully, but it changed all life for her as nothing else ever did.
In 1904 came the third break in the family circle, when Mrs. Parsons
with her beautiful little girl, Alice Loraine, nearly three years old,
the first granddaughter in the family, was visiting her grandparents in
Colorado Springs. No child could have been more tenderly loved and cared
for than she, but nothing could avert the fatal illness that developed
soon after their arrival.



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During the years that followed her going west, Mrs. Bemis spent only one
summer there. For several successive seasons she went with her children
to Minnetonka in Minnesota; but it was not possible for Mr. Bemis to be
with them there more than he was during the winter, because of its
distance from Boston, and a happy change came to all when later Mrs.
Bemis had gained enough to make it safe for her to spend some months of
each year by the sea on Cape Ann, where the family had headquarters for
many summers. Twice she went abroad with her children; first during the
summer of 1891 and five years later for a year of study and extended
travel for her daughters. Marjorie Gregg, who knew her well, recalling
her many journeys, says: "Few not loving travel for its own sake could
or would have taken so many long journeys. The trips east in the spring
and back to Colorado in the autumn became a habit, and she carried them
out with precision and determination that did not ignore discomforts;
she saw these, felt them and mentioned them, but never feared or
regarded them. She planned and packed and made all arrangements without
confusion or mistakes; never 'took it out' on other people, but refused
help even in late years. It would be impossible to count up the miles
travelled, the time spent on Pullman cars, the trunks packed--all not
because of Wanderlust, curiosity, or restlessness, but for love of
family--that she and her children might be with their father half of
each year and that she might keep close to her sister and nieces, whose
relation to 'Aunt Alice' was as close as if the two families had lived
in the same town. Later Grandpa and Grandma Bemis journeyed together
indefatigably."
When Mr. Bemis laid aside many of the details of his business, they
chose Lake Mohonk, New York, for their summer home, and the last seven
summers of her life were spent very happily there; so happily, that each