James George was born in 1940 in Texarkana, Arkansas and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1942 and then to Monterey County, California in 1946. Mattie Parham was born in 1944 in Eutaw, Alabama and moved to Birmingham at age 7 and then to San Francisco in 1965. James and Mattie met in San Francisco and married, later moving with their family to Los Angeles so James could attend UCLA, and finally settling in Ontario, California in 1990.