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n 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
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