| Welcome Welcome (Home) UK Family Origins Introduction In The Beginning Penn Parish Records Manorial Records Stonehouse Watercroft Grove Graves in the UK Sir George Grove Letter Extracts Family Tree Groves in America Introduction to America The American Adventure Groves in Australia Introduction to Australia The Australian Family Acknowledgements Author and Researchers Technical |
The Australian contribution to this story is an important and exciting development in the Grove story. Their story is shorter only because it is the most recent branch; having been in Australia since 1922, which, against 1332 in Penn in Buckinghamshire and 1864 in America, is a relatively brief history. However, these new roots are now well established and the Australian descendants are a strong and extended family group. The family in Australia was founded by Isabel Grove and her husband Joe Grant. Isabel was born in Audubon, Iowa in 1881 and returned with her parents to England as a young girl of eleven in 1892. Her older sisters May and Grace went to boarding school at St Joseph's Convent at Redhill, Surrey, England and later in France, but it is believed Isabel was educated locally. After the death of her mother in 1908 she kept house at Fawley Bottom Farm, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire for her father and young brother. Falling in love with Joseph Grant, the son of the farmer next door, she married him in Stonor Park Chapel in 1912. At first the young couple made their home at Fawley Bottom, and their four children were born there. After the end of the First World War in 1918, in which Joe served in the Army, he soon began making plans to emigrate to Australia, believing the opportunities for farmers were greater there. Her early pioneering life in America had not given Isabel any inclination to travel. She was reluctant to leave England, but her husband won the day and the family sailed just before Christmas 1921. The family settled in Mulawa, Victoria, where Joe returned to farming. The children enjoyed the freedom and open air life, although Isabel never lost her love for her home country. None of the family returned, except Peter who was declared missing presumed dead, during a bombing raid on Berlin in the Second World War. The three girls married Australians, and today their families carry on the Grove heritage 12,000 miles away from where it all began in Penn, Buckinghamshire, England. |