Many of the younger generation both within and without the family circle will have enduring memories of that house. Alan Gregg recalled in a few words childhood memories that were common to many; writing from his post in France he said: "Mrs. Bemis's death was a great surprise and shock, and the long time that elapsed between knowing of her illness and her death made me feel pretty far away. I remember her letting me play that music box to my heart's content, and the way she made Gregg laugh at an unexpected fall he took, instead of cry, better than anything else. She could also do nice things for you without spilling over into sentimentality."
Her grandchildren's recollections of her will be mostly in connection with events in their own homes, where her visits were looked for eagerly by those on the Atlantic coast and those on the Pacific, but happily some of them are old enough to remember and pass on to the others the impression made on them and on other children in the family connection, of the grandmother's great pleasure in being with them and her plans for their comfort and happiness. They recall the perfect housekeeping, where the wheels seemed to move easily and were always out of sight; the daintiness of all its appointments, which was shown too in the dress and personal adornments of her who made this home and of those who shared it with her. Here she welcomed many of her old friends and also new acquaintances with whom lasting friendships were formed; here the children gathered around them a fine group of congenial companions who became their lasting friends; here they grew to manhood and to womanhood; from thence they were all married, and hither they all returned many times, with wife, husbands, and their own sons and daughters for happy family reunions.
In this home the saddest as well as the most joyful experiences of her life came to her. The former were borne with the calmness and strength shown only by those with great capacity for suffering and great power of self-control. The hardest trial that she had ever known was at a time when she had little physical strength to meet it. After a year with the family in Colorado, the eldest son, Judson, was sent to a manual training school at St. Louis, Missouri, where there were many family friends. He was a lad of much promise, a great reader, with varied gifts and tastes. He had a very social nature and a warm interest in people, was noble in character, and deep in his affections. The separation was very hard for his mother, but it was met with the unselfishness she always showed when her children's interests were to be considered. She 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.
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 year they engaged the same rooms for the following season and said they meant to do this as long as they lived. It became a real home to them. Mr. and Mrs. Smiley, wonderful host and hostess to all, were soon their warm personal friends, and many pleasant acquaintances with guests were renewed each year. Among their most valued friends there was Dr. Faunce, president of Brown University, who conducted the Sunday services year after year. They considered his sermons as among the best and most helpful they ever heard, and after each season thought and talked much of them, always looking forward to the coming of the summer Sundays, their brightest days at Mohonk. Here every condition met their tastes and their needs; the great beauty of the place itself, the quiet and peace of the house, the wise and unusual way in which it is ordered, all combined to give them an ideal residence for the summer. The fact that young people of a fine type were always there added much to Mrs. Bemis's pleasure. She enjoyed watching their sports and their life in the open. Her windows overlooked the lake, and she sat there hour after hour watching the parties coming and going in boats and climbing the hills. Her delight in the beauties of the whole picture before her, than which there are few to compare with it the world over, grew steadily with each day there. Just before leaving Mohonk for the last time, she wrote to a young cousin: "I wish I could transport you all here. I have always said that I would like to live on a beautiful estate and have no care of it; and here I have been for seven summers and no place by any possibility could be finer. Mr. Smiley did not spoil nature but kept its wonderful beauty and added to it."
During the last years they were together, Mr. and Mrs. Bemis made several interesting trips to California and to Seattle, to be with their daughter, Mrs. Parsons. The mere recital of all these journeyings may give the impression that the life in Colorado Springs was a very broken one, but it did not seem so to her friends there, for at each return it was resumed so quickly and so quietly that they think of it rather as continuous. No friend and no interest she had in any work that helped on the general welfare was ever ignored or forgotten by her wherever she might be.
Probably there has never been any one in Colorado Springs with so many enforced absences and the same limitations of strength who has done as much as she in enriching individual lives with friendship and the community life with sympathy and generous material aid. Nothing that she counted a duty sat lightly on her mind or conscience.
Miss Ellen T. Brinley, who was for many years a friend and neighbor of Mrs. Bemis, wrote shortly after her death: "She was a real New Englander of a type all too rare in these degenerate days. For many years she was not very strong, and yet she was one of the least self-indulgent people that ever lived. Wealth to her was not a reason for luxury and pleasure seeking, but an opportunity for helping others—with a lack of ostentation characteristic of her whole nature. She was truly a secret helper. That the young should have their chance in life and that the paths of the needy should be made more easy, became increasingly the object of her life. Colorado College and the Young Women's Christian Association were the two organizations in Colorado Springs whose welfare she had most at heart, and for them she was constantly devising liberal things. In the wakeful hours of the night, she planned to relieve the sufferings of others, and her spirit of good will came from no weak sentimentality. She was a woman of good judgment, an incisive mind, and a strong character. She was a wonderfully loyal friend and her daily life centred in her own family circle, in a few personal friendships, and in the benevolence which was her avocation."