He taught himself the alphabet from a decorated bowl, and impressed visitors to the family farm by reading aloud the newspaper by age four.
[1] From 1926 to 1928 he taught public school, denying offers at universities and encouraging his students to pursue graduate educations in mycology.
[1] For Dermateaceae he established taxonomic relationships from findings related to the formation of the conidium for various Genera of Helotiales including Dermeteaceae and Helotiaceae.
[1][2][3] This work was featured in a post mortem publication book Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of Canada,[4] which largely covered the families of Agaricaceae and Boletaceae.
[6] During his time at Lake Timagami after earning his Ph.D. he met Elsie Margaret Reah and they married in 1936 and moved to Ottawa for a position James accepted with the Canada Department of Agriculture.
[1] In 1956 Elsie passed away, and James married again to Dr. Naomi Catherine Adair Jackson, whose work he greatly admired, on Dec. 21, 1957 in Manotick.
[7] Including, in 1960, botanist Richard William George Dennis published Grovesia, which is a genus of fungi in the family Helotiaceae.