Sandra Hollins Jemison Funeral
Notes
Transcript
Memorial service
Memorial service
I would like to welcome everyone here today, and also to thank you for being here today, to remember, to pay respect, and to celebrate the life of Sandra Hollins Jemison. A life well lived.
Pray
Pray
Obituary
Obituary
Sandra Hollins Jemison, aged 88, passed on November 4, 2024.
Sandra departed this world peacefully, surrounded by her beloved children and grandchildren, after living a life filled with love, kindness, and purpose.
Born to Maurice LaRue Hollins and Christine Russell on August 28, 1936, in St. Petersburg, Florida, Sandra was a devoted mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.
She was the proud mother of five children, a grandmother to ten, and a great-grandmother to three.
Her family was the center of her universe, and she cherished every moment spent with them.
Sandra was a woman of many talents and passions.
She earned a Bachelor's degree and Master's degree at the University of Florida.
She enjoyed teaching biology at St.Petersburg high school, helped to manage the Pasadena Golf Club, and worked in real estate.
Sandra was a talented musician, singer, and songwriter who played the stand up bass fiddle and sang with the bands Green Grass Revival and Southwind.
Her soulful voice and musical prowess brought joy to many.
Sandra's love for music was a cornerstone of her life, and she shared this passion generously, enriching the lives of those around her.
Those who knew Sandra will remember her most for her boundless generosity, her warm heart, and her unwavering kindness.
She was truly a loving person, always putting others' needs before her own, and she touched the lives of everyone who had the privilege of knowing her.
Whether through a comforting word, a helping hand, or a listening ear, Sandra made the world a better place by simply being in it.
Sandra's legacy will live on through her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, all of whom carry forward the love, compassion, and values she instilled in them.
She will be deeply missed but never forgotten.
Sandra is survived by her former husband, Richard Jemison, father of their five children,
Maurice Jemison (Vicki),
Leslie Jemison,
Kell Jemison (Heather),
Bryce Jemison (Jackie),
Susannah Nendze (Ken),
her ten grandchildren, Kaley Faris, Kaleb Jemison, Madison Jemison, Brooke Sparrow, Brittany Jemison, Morgan Jemison, Morgan Lyon, Blake Gibson, Seth Lyon, Gavin Nendze,
and her three great-grandchildren, Jamie Lyon, Rowan Faris, and Ashton Lyon;
her two sisters, Patricia Kohler, and Robin Hollins, and her brother, Dixie Hollins;
her nieces, Christine Hanner, Amy Baldwin, and Jen Cox;
and her nephew, Louis Kohler.
Stories and Memories
Stories and Memories
It has been a few years since I have seen Sandra, but the Hollins family has always been important to the Priest family.
My grandfather Dean Priest, and his two brothers worked for Mr. Maurice on the ranch.
If you have had the sausage that Dixie gives out, it began with my grandfather Dean, then my dad, and I have made thousands of pounds of it, but now living away from here, dad is once again making it.
As I meet with Bryce and Kell a couple of weeks ago, they were telling me stories of their mother, and one story caught my attention, that a few years ago, they learned that their mother had a bullet in her thigh, but she would not tell them who shot her.
They would love to hear the story, as would probably most everyone here.
At this time we are going to give anyone that would like to share a story or a memory of Sandra a chance to do that.
Family stories
Family stories
Bryce sent me memories that Sandra wrote about growing up on the ranch and working with her father.
As I read through it, I read about my own history also as she mentions my grandfather multiple times, and even that he shared with her, his desire to marry my grandmother Pie as everyone knew her.
In those memories she shared about my uncle Wayne, and Uncle W.C. and how Uncle W.C. named his daughter Sandra after her.
As I read through the memories that Sandra recorded, some things came to mind, she was tough, hard working, and caring.
In those memories she shares how she helped her dad work and doctor cows, plant, fertilize, and bale hay, and burn the woods.
She mentions her times attending the Old Red Level Church, singing hymns, attending the ice cream socials, and dinners-on-the-ground.
Sandra ended her recounts of memories of the ranch with a poem, I am guessing she wrote.
It says, For fifty years I’ve known this land,
lived through its many changes;
My roots are fast and deep and strong,
my memories vast and changeless;
It grieves me now to say farewell
to this magic land of mine;
Life was sweet, its lessons true
and this the hardest one - - -
That all things end, each time will pass,
the bitter and the sweet;
But memory can still take us back
to the days of used to be.
As I read those memories I immediately though of Psalms 23.
Then Bryce message me, and said that was Scripture that they would like used.
Message
Message
A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
King David states, The Lord is my shepherd, and David was familiar with tending sheep.
After all King David started off as a shepherd.
He knew first hand what it was for a shepherd to protect and provide for sheep, so he describes his relationship to God in those terms.
What David had been for his sheep, God had been to him.
Notice that the Lord wasn’t a mere generic shepherd to David; he was David’s personal shepherd.
David calls the Lord my shepherd.
As a result of God being David’s shepherd, David confesses, I have what I need.
Because God had covered all of David’s needs, he recognized that he lacked nothing.
Having declared the Lord to be his shepherd, David proceeds in the remainder of the psalm to explain how God met his needs.
I. Spiritual needs
I. Spiritual needs
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
God met David’s spiritual needs.
Just as a shepherd gives sheep rest in green pastures and refreshes them with quiet waters, so God had done spiritually for David.
The cares and struggles of this world can leave us exhausted.
Such times are opportunities to learn our dependence on the Lord.
He provides spiritual refreshment and restoration.
II. Directional needs
II. Directional needs
3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
God met David’s directional needs.
He leads me along the right paths.
Sheep are prone to wander and become lost; they need guidance.
Many cars today have navigational systems.
If you deviate from the best route to reach your destination, the system will warn you to return to the right road.
Through His Word and His Spirit, God leads us along the right paths in life - and reroutes us when we foolishly become wayward.
Why?
For His name sake - that is, so that others can hear us say, My God has brought me here.
III. Emotional needs
III. Emotional needs
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
God met David’s emotional needs.
Regardless of the danger surrounding them, sheep can follow their shepherd without fear.
He provides comfort with his rod - which is used to beat of wild animals that attack the sheep.
His staff - which is used to guide the sheep and pull them back from harm.
When life takes you through the darkest of valley, receive consolation knowing that your divine shepherd has power in one hand and grace in the other.
IV. Physical needs
IV. Physical needs
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
God met David’s physical needs.
Though enemies hovered near, God fed him when he hungered and anointed him with oil when he needed healing.
Like David, we must recognize that we have one source.
There are many resources - many channels God may use to provide and care for your physical well being - but you have only one source.
And God never runs dry.
That is why David’s cup overflowed.
V. Eternal needs
V. Eternal needs
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
God met David’s eternal needs.
Only goodness and faithful love will purse me all the days of my life.
Shepherds often have sheep dogs that keep the sheep from wandering.
The divine shepherd has two sheepdogs named goodness and faithful love.
Sometimes, they bark and nip at you when you wander from the fold.
But, they do so with the intent of driving you back into fellowship with your shepherd, so that you may eternally dwell in the house of the Lord.
Submit to the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ.
20 Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord,
He lays down his life for his sheep.
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
Through his wounds, we are healed.
24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
If you have gone astray, return to him.
25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
Jesus knows His sheep, and they know Him.
14 “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,
Jesus is waiting to welcome you.
Closing
Closing
As I close, I was reminded of the poem that Paul Harvey shared of God made a Farmer, and I thought it fit Sandra well.
And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker."
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board."
So God made a farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild.
Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it."
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt.
And watch it die.
Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.'
I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps.
And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours."
So God made a farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place.
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark.
It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners.
Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.
"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'"
So God made a farmer.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
