Family and friends linger in the bedroom of Eileen Slocum’s home on Bellevue Avenue in Newport yesterday. Some mourners knelt at Slocum’s bed and bowed their heads in prayer. The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

NEWPORT — Of the myriad events Eileen Gillespie Slocum hosted over the decades at her Bellevue Avenue estate, none compares with yesterday, when, four days after dying peacefully at the age of 92, she lay in her bed in her second-story bedroom, receiving mourners from all walks of life.

This was among Slocum’s last wishes: to be viewed where she slept, in a room that contains a dressing table she described as her “favorite spot” in a house she loved as one might a special person. She often sat at this table, which her grandmother bought in Paris to furnish her Fifth Avenue estate, contemplating mementoes of a storied life that began and ended in elegant luxury, but was not without heartache.

And there she was for the final time near that dressing table yesterday, her eyes closed, her head resting on two feather pillows. She wore her wedding ring and a peach-colored peignoir, freshly ironed white sheets covering her almost to the neck. Night tables to either side held bouquets of roses, and a third arrangement suffused the sultry summer air with the scent of lilies. A tickle of a breeze ruffled the curtains on her windows and a single fan did its best to help cool.

By 5:30 p.m., the viewing, which began at 3 and was to continue until 7 p.m., had drawn more than 100 people, guided onto the grounds by a Newport police detail. Politicians who knew Slocum through her work for the Republican Party came, as did Democrats who respected her commitment to the public discourse, and ordinary Newporters she’d met about town. People named Drexel and Van Arsdall, listed in the Green Book, the guide to Newport aristocracy, came, too. And more were expected today, when a second wake in her home will be held from 3 to 7 p.m.

They entered Slocum’s house through the front door and were greeted in the parlor by her children –– Jerry Slocum, Margy Slocum Quinn, and Beryl Slocum Powell –– and several grandchildren and their spouses. Up the main staircase they traveled, and across a hall to Slocum’s room, which is painted peach, like her peignoir, with the trim all done in cream –– a bright and spacious room where Slocum not only slept, but did much of her reading and caught up on her correspondence.

Over the years, Slocum welcomed a sitting president, presidential candidates, billionaires, European royalty, America’s Cup competitors, diplomats, anti-abortionists, the Christian faithful, and many others at her home at 459 Bellevue Ave. She hosted dinner parties, fundraisers, wedding receptions, teas and balls. Children and grandchildren and, more recently, great-grandchildren have lived with her.

But the only thing to compare with yesterday was 11 summers ago, when Slocum’s late husband, John Jermain Slocum, was waked in the same bedroom, wearing a favorite pair of red-and-white striped pajamas. With him and with herself, his wife continued a family tradition that dated to the 19th century, if not earlier.

Some mourners knelt at Slocum’s bed and bowed their heads in prayer. Some blessed themselves. Some passed by swiftly. One bent to kiss her cheek. Many had left cards downstairs next to the guestbook, arrayed on a table with signed photographs of President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, and the couple who hope to succeed them, Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy.

If they noticed Slocum’s bedroom dressing table, they did not remark.

It stands by the main door, on the opposite side of her bedroom from where she lay. A large mirror hangs over it, and badges and name cards from Republican National Conventions and other political events are draped over two wall-mounted electric lamps to either side. But more than political souvenirs, what drew Slocum to this place was family history.

Margy Quinn and her brother Jerry Slocum, seen in mirror, prepare to greet visitors at their mother’s home in Newport yesterday, where Eileen Slocum lay in her bedroom.

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The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

One winter afternoon several years ago, Slocum invited a Journal reporter to see the room that she occupied for the last time yesterday.

“Sit here and I’ll show you what is my favorite spot in the house,” Slocum said, settling her visitor at the dressing table.

It held then, as yesterday, photographs of her mother, father, husband and two sisters. Gold-plated combs and brushes that belonged to ancestors. A sterling-silver letter opener. Bottles of Guerlain and Chanel perfume. A pin cushion. A gold pill box engraved “EGS – JJS, 1940-1990,” a gift on her 50th wedding anniversary.

Slocum went through the brushes and combs, speaking as if past were present.

“These are my grandmother’s, and these are Daddy’s and these are Daddy’s, and then John’s. These are part of Grammy’s gold set.”

“Do you use them?” she was asked.

“No, not at all, but I sit and enjoy them.”

She drew attention to a photograph of her sister Beryl, who died at the age of 6, when Slocum was a young teen. Her death inclined Slocum toward her lifelong love of children and opposition to abortion, two of the things that daughter Margy believes she will be best-remembered for.

“She was the beauty of the family, with pale blue eyes,” Slocum had said. “She was such a good little girl. She got pneumonia when she was having her appendix taken out. Mummy always thought the doctors had a window open in the old Harbor Hospital where they operated. It’s just the saddest story.”

Slocum’s funeral will be tomorrow at 10 a.m. at Trinity Church.

gwmiller@projo.com