My Great Grandfather: Jemison II
I know much less about Jemison the second than I do the first. Still, because of the closer proximity in time, I have an artifact with his careful handwriting, given to me by my father, Jemison IV.

Given to my father June 16, 1954, "with love and best wishes", a small book, now on my bedside table, with 365 daily meditations.

In his, and my father's honor, a quote from the only connection I have to my long departed ancestor from the meditation for October 13:

["I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." Psalms 4:8.

I heard him singing early in the morning. It was hardly light! I could not understand that song; it was fairly a lilt of joy. It had been a portentous night for me, full of dreams that did disturb me. Old things that I had hoped to forget and new things that I had prayed would never come, trouped through my dreams all grinning like little bare-faced imps. Certainly I was in no humor to sing. What could possess that fellow out yonder to be telling the whole township how joyous he was? He was perched on the old rail fence by the spring run. He was drenched. It had rained in the night and evidently he had been poorly housed. I pitied him. What comfort could he have had through that night bathed in storm? He never thought of comfort. His song was not bought by any such duplicity. It was in his heart. He could do no other. Then I shook myself. The shame that a lark had finer poise than a man!
Rev. G. A. Leichliter]

Now my Great Grandfather and I have both read this meditation (for I assume from it's well-worn cover he knew it inside and out). I wonder what troubles this man my father, in playing his role and passing it along, described to me as "the kind old man who gave this book to me", endured. All lost to time. I need to ask my father, sooner rather than later.

It also makes me a little melancholy to realize that, despite four generations of men persevering, I will be the last Jemison in this line. I won't have a son.

I suppose there's a reason for that too.