Daughter of Rev. John Walker and his second wife, Elizabeth Morrow. Rev. Walker was the founder of New Athens, Ohio, and established Alma College, later renamed Franklin College there. A noted abolitionist, he was active with the underground railroad. Jemima was only 2 and half years of age when her father died. It appears baptism records for Unity church, where her father was pastor from 1814 to 1845, are unfortunately missing for the years 1842-1850. Earlier records gave the full names of her sisters.

In 1855, Jemima's mother remarried to William Nash at Xenia, Greene County, Ohio. They were married by Rev. Thomas Beveridge, a close friend of Rev. Walker, and the same minister who married William Nash and his first wife in Xenia in 1821. William was in Ohio attending a Presbyterian church synod, and returned to Warren county with his new bride and four step-daughters, including Jemima, who was 12 years old at the time.

Jemima married Major John Alexander Gordon, of Co E, 16th USCT in Warren county on 7 March 1866, while he was on leave from Tennessee. Both had been students at Monmouth College, with Jemima receiving her A. M. degree with the class of 1864. Jemima died 11 months after her marriage, the day after giving birth to her only child, James Walker Gordon, future judge in Grant county, Kansas and Henderson county, Illinois. Her husband went on to graduate Monmouth College in 1868, his studies interrupted by the war. He was immediately named professor of English at Monmouth College, and remarried to Elizabeth Jane Young, daughter of Monmouth College founder, Rev. Alexander Young, in 1871. He would later go on to preach in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California, where he was also on the staff of Occidental College, and died in 1919.