George J. Kime was born as Johann Georg Keim on November 14, 1838 in the village of Ratzenwinden, Bavaria, per German records (The Brenner Collection). He was the son of Georg Michael Keim and Anna Apollonia Link. Some ambiguity on his birth date exists, as his gravestone would indicate his date of birth as around December 1839.

In describing George's coming to America, the nephew George Michael Kime wrote in 1931 "My mother's 4 brothers [Paul, George, Mike, and John] left for America between 1850 and 1860. They had to walk to Wurzburg because there was no railroad at that time. They sailed from Hamburg. Their name was Kime. George was killed by a horse, John could not stand the climate and died soon. Paul the oldest went with his boss as shoemaker."

George Kime was living in Big Grove, Kendall County, Illinois with his brother Paul and Paul's new bride Margaret (or Margaretha) on July 7, 1860. It is likely that George J. Kime moved with his brother Paul and his wife to Farm Ridge Township, La Salle County, Illinois about 1861. It was there that George met his future wife Nancy Ann Tole. According to their marriage license, George Kime and sixteen year-old Nancy Tole were married in La Salle County, Illinois on June 9, 1862. In the next five years Nancy gave birth to three children --- the oldest child who died as an infant, Edith Belle Kime (married later to James Peter Redman), and George Arthur Kime, who was at two months of age was named in honor of his father after he was killed.

At the time of his death on July 9, 1867, the young George J. Kime owned 80 acres of land in Section 6 [east half of the NE quarter] of the Farm Ridge Township of La Salle County, Illinois. While his probate papers indicated that he did grow some wheat and corn, his primary occupation seemed to be in the raising, training, and trading of horses.

George Kime's passion for horses led to his demise. Mabel (Kime) Farnsworth Baer recounted that her grandfather George J. Kime died after being kicked by a stallion when her father Arthur Kime was very young. A contemporary Ottawa, LaSalle County, Illinois newspaper article confirms this when it makes mention in a July 18, 1867 edition that a George "Kine" of Farm Ridge Township died of a horse accident. The Petition of Letters of Administration for the Estate of George Kime signed by Nancy A. Kime on July 12, 1867 indicates that George Kime "departed this life in [the] town of Farm Ridge in said [La Salle] County, at his place of residence on or about the 9th day of July A. D. 1867." Thomas G. Pearse, Jr., the owner of the land in July 2004, related to George Kime's great-great grandson David Farnsworth, that Tom's grandfather (born in 1855) once told him of a former owner of the land, "a blacksmith," who was "kicked in the crotch" by a horse and killed. According to Tom Pearse, the very northeast corner of his land was where the "blacksmith" shop and stable stood. The family displayed the large number of horse shoes that have been plowed up in that area of its land over the years.