Alice Cogswell Bemis: A Sketch by a Friend

								

years when, as they mentioned some wise rule for life, they prefaced it
with, "As Mrs. Cowles used to tell us," or "as Dr. Cowles said." One of
Mrs. Cowles's daughters now living writes of Alice: "I remember that she
was universally liked and loved." It was a happy school life and a
happy girlhood for both of these sisters. Notwithstanding their great
loss in having to grow to womanhood without their mother, a loss of
which they were always conscious, they had great compensation in their
close companionship with their father and with each other. Their father
gave them the best of instruction in things spiritual, and unusual
training in all practical matters, especially with regard to the value
of money, how to care for it and how to spend it, and then gave them a
much freer hand in the direction of many personal matters than most
girls of their age were accustomed to have; this freedom they used
wisely. One of them was once asked how they filled their days in times
that often seem very dull and uninteresting to the modern girl with her
round of engagements. The answer was, "We skated in winter and ran wild
in summer." What was said in jest was far from being the literal truth,
but it suggests the happy impression that their girlhood gave them of
genuine freedom guided by the wise counsels of others and their own good
sense.
In June of 1864 Lucy Cogswell was married to Mr. George B. Roberts, and
their house became home to Alice. Mr. Roberts afterward built the house
on Craigie Street, Cambridge, in which they spent the rest of their
lives. It was here that the two generations met often while the Bemis
family lived in the east, and later when they came on from Colorado. The
relation between the sisters had hitherto been a particularly close one,
and was only strengthened by the happy new family ties that came to
each. To those who loved these sisters and saw both come to a time when
feebleness and physical restriction might have been before them, there
can be only rejoicing that they were spared any added weakness of body,
and that there was no clouding of their bright and active minds, no
abatement of interest in the life about them as long as they were here.
Mrs. Roberts had been in such delicate health for several years that it
did not seem possible that she would outlive her sister, but only two
months after their last parting, the great transition came to her also.



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We are given a charming glimpse into the first meeting between Mr. and
Mrs. Bemis in some interesting reminiscences Mr. Bemis has recently
written for his grandchildren. He had been settled in business in St.
Louis for some years when Alice Cogswell, shortly after her sister's
marriage, went there to visit a very dear aunt, "Aunt Lucy Smyth." The
occasion of their meeting came through Mr. Bemis's first visit to Boston
in 1865, which, in his own words, "resulted in an important occurrence."