He died in an 1890 flu epidemic, and six years later she married James Russell Parsons, an educator and administrator in the state of New York and later a diplomat.

She served in various official capacities on party committees, and she managed Fiorello H. La Guardia's successful campaign to become president of New York's Board of Aldermen.

[2] Following the loss of her first husband, Parsons' sought solace in long walks with her friend the illustrator Marion Satterlee.

[1] These outings prompted her first and most important botanical work, How to Know the Wild Flowers (1893), which was the first field guide to North American wildflowers.

[2] Parsons's books, with the notable exception of her autobiography, are widely available on the Internet and in library special collections.