Frances Bemis (Fulton County, Georgia June 25, 1898 - November 3, 1974 St. Augustine, Florida) was a public relations specialist specializing in department store promotions, a newspaper writer, radio producer, and a fashion director. She attended college at Oglethorpe University and the University of California. After graduating college she returned to Georgia and wrote columns for both the Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Journal, at the same time she began her public relations career by handling publicity for the Woman's Club of Atlanta.
In the late 1920s she moved to New York City to develop a dual career in public relations and advertising. She was contracted by various New York City department stores to develop advertising by staging various types of publicity events. In 1932 she was hired by Brooklyn-based Hearn's, as a fashion promoter and publicist. Among the publicity events she staged at the store was a fashion contest emceed by gossip columnist and society figure, Elsa Maxwell, and organizing a Thanksgiving Day circus in Central Park. Bemis wrote the press releases for the events she staged and occasionally made the front page of New York City newspapers herself.
In 1938, Bemis resigned from Hearn's to do free-lance public relations for a variety of diverse companies including a Ford Motor Company promotion at the 1939 New York World's Fair and the Claire Wolff modeling agency.
In 1943 Bemis enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and was stationed in Daytona Beach, giving radio addresses and coordinating entertainment at the local U.S.O. She was honorably discharged with the rank of corporal.
She then coordinated a war-time fashion show in New York City sponsored by the New York Times titled "Fashions of the Times". She then went to Atlanta to become Director of Special Events at Rich's Department Store (1946–1947), then back to New York City to take a position as Director of Feature Events at Abraham & Straus Department Store, where she worked until 1954.
In 1956 Bemis semi-retired to St. Augustine, Florida where she engaged in charitable work for various causes, worked as a publicist for the city and wrote for several local newspapers.[1]
On January 3, 1974 her friend and close neighbor on Marine St. Athalia Ponsell Lindsley a fellow socialite, who lived across the street, was hacked to death with a machete on her front porch. Another neighbor Alan Stafford was indicted and tried for the crime but was acquitted. The investigation into the crime was wrought with controversy and no one else was ever charged with the crime. Bemis who may have been gathering information for a book, alluded to the fact that she had information pertinent to the case. On November 3, 1974 she went out for her evening walk and never returned, she was found about 7:00 pm by the corner of Bridge and Marine streets, a block and a half from her house, with her skull bashed in. Her murder like Ponsell Lindsley's was never solved.[2]