Alice Cogswell Bemis: A Sketch by a Friend

								

these poor students are, and really they are the ones whom we hear of
later; the rich men's sons fall short in some way."



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Mrs. Bemis was one of a group of women who, in the spring of 1889,
organized the Women's Education Society of Colorado College. The
resolutions passed by its executive board at the time of her death so
adequately express her relation to the Society that they are here quoted
in full:
"The Executive Board of the Women's Educational Society wishes to place
on record its sense of irreparable loss in the passing of Alice Cogswell
Bemis.
"Her association with the work of the Society has extended over a long
period of years, and her part in it has always been characterized by
fidelity to the purpose of the organization and keen discrimination in
the execution of the trust. She brought to the problems confronting the
Board rare insight and judgment, and her business acumen was
invaluable.
"Many students of Colorado College are personally indebted to her for
the removal of obstacles in the way of the successful prosecution of
their work in which her interest was vital and perennial. A story of
genuine need never failed to elicit her assistance. Of her general
constructive planning for the many-sided life of the young women, Bemis
Hall and Cogswell Theatre are enduring evidence.
"The Board has lost a useful member, her friends a wise counselor, and
philanthropic agencies a generous helper to whom worthy cause or person
never appealed in vain."
Another organization to which she contributed much pleasure and from
which she received the same is the Art Club of Colorado Springs. A group
of women whose personal relation to her was close and increasingly dear
as the years passed, formed its membership. They met twice a month at
each other's houses, read, and studied pictures, finding, as one says,
"an alleviation not unwelcome in that life where tuberculosis and the
gold fever of the early days alternately possessed the atmosphere." The
Art Club owed much of its genuine life to Mrs. Bemis; her interest in
art, her keenness to acquire and classify the knowledge that she loved,
was as strong as her friendship and neighborliness. The utmost
hospitality to invalid strangers was part and parcel of those Colorado
Springs early days, and in goodness to obscure invalids and in lending a
hand in hard times no one could tell the extent of her benefactions.
All that Mrs. Bemis did will never be known, and what she gave was never
told at the time unless it seemed best for obvious reasons that her
identification with a good movement should be made public. The
unsolicited gifts must have been manifold compared with those she gave
in response to appeals. It was always easy to approach her for any good
cause. If she gave, it was always with good will; if she declined to do
so, a distinct reason for the refusal was stated; and she was as careful