John James Bemis was born around 1860 in Ohio to Reuben Bemis and Mary Rowley. His father was a laborer who owned $800 of real estate and $300 of personal property by 1860. She grew up in Milan, Ohio, and her father died on November 23, 1875. He married a woman name Mary around 1880, and they had two surviving children: Charles, born around 1886; and Harry, born around 1894.
By 1880, Bemis was working as a farmer in Berlin, Ohio, and he was helping care for his mother and his brother William. By 1900, he was working as a fisherman in Prowers County, Colorado. He returned to Milan, Ohio, in the early 1900s. They moved to San Diego, California, in the 1910s, and Bemis worked as a watchman there. His wife died in the 1920s, and Bemis passed away in San Diego on April 10, 1931.