James King graduated from Alma College in 1905, and from Princeton Theological Seminary the following year. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister and began ministry as pastor of Olivet Church in Lima, Ohio. Ten years later he was commissioned a U.S. Army chaplain, serving in France during World War II. After the war he continued service as a chaplain to the Ohio National Guard for 15 years, and achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. He also spent several years teaching sociology at Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio, and was later elected mayor of that city. In 1940 he returned to Saginaw, Michigan, the city of his birth and his youth, to serve as chaplain at the veteransÕ hospital there, where he died himself three years later.