The eldest son and living child of Anne and Gilbert Blythe, James Matthew Blythe - Jem for short - is the only one out of all his brothers and sisters to have been born anywhere but Ingleside - the House of Dreams. He is named for Captain Jim Boyd, an elderly, retired sailor who keeps the Four Winds light and befriends Gilbert and Anne when they move to the House of Dreams - he dies soon after Jem is born. Jem's middle name is after Matthew Cuthbert, his adopted "grandfather", who dies at the end of Anne of Green Gables. Or, as Anne puts it, "the two finest gentleman [she] knows".