James Albert Bigham

Reverend James Albert Bigham was born July 13, 1938 to Martin W. Bigham Sr. and Lena Hammond Bigham in Marlin, Texas. He was the 11th of 12 children born to that union. He accepted Christ at an early age while a member of St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church. He graduated high school from Booker T. Washington High School in Marlin, Texas. After high school James served in the US Marine Corps as a marksman from 1958 to June 1961 and was member of the Marine Corps reserves until 1962. In June of 1959 he married Velma Gilbert of Marlin Texas. From this union was produced a son, Lawrence Edward. An accomplished tailor, James went to work as a tailor of women's fine fashions and held fashion shows around the Seattle area to showcase his designs while attending night school. James began work at Boeing in 1967 in the Commercial Airplane Group where he was an award winning interior designer on the 737 & 747 aircraft. He later worked in various classified positions of the Space & Communications Division throughout the Puget Sound area until his retirement in 1996. James loved the theater and appeared in movies, and local theater productions at ACT, Seattle Repertory Theater, Carco Th...[more]

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er, and Black Arts West. Movies included Cinderella Liberty, and McQ both filmed in Seattle. Local theater productions included The Piano Lesson, Raisin in the Sun, and Five On the Black Hand Side to name a few. Despite many offers to go to Hollywood and Broadway, he felt that his ministry was with his family and his church. James joined Mount Zion Baptist Church in 1962, and served on Audio Visual Ministry since the early days of video. He also worked in Drama ministry, and served as a Deacon. He soon accepted the call to the ministry and began to preach and teach the gospel through theater in Mount Zion's Ethnic School and Vacation Bible School. James loved his family, fishing, gadgets and "gizmos" and tinkering, but he took the greatest pride in serving the Lord. James was preceded in death by his parents, his wife, Velma and his 11 siblings: brothers J. C., Roy, Charles, Martin Jr., Kenneth, and Lawrence; his sisters Bertha, Juanita, Jewelene, Minnie Ola and Billie Jean. He leaves to cherish his memories, his son Lawrence II, daughter-in-law, Sherrell and granddaughter, Eileen (The Apple of His Eye), a host of nieces and nephews and friends.