Over Prairie Trails

Frederick Philip Grove was actually born Felix Paul Greve in 1879 in Radomno, and raised in Hamburg, Germany. He graduated from Gymnasium Johanneum in 1898 and then studied classical philology and archaeology in Bonn and Munich. In Berlin, he became involved with Else Endell, the wife of his friend August Endell, and they all set out for Palermo in 1903. Greve served a prison term for fraud in Bonn between 1903-1904. Afterwards, they lived in Switzerland, France and Berlin; and in 1909, he abruptly left for America. Apparently heavy in debt, he double sold his translation of Swift's "Prose Works" and felt it necessary to stage his suicide. Else joined him in Pittsburgh a year later, but Greve abandoned her on a small farm near Sparta, Kentucky and left for Canada in 1911.

In 1912, he arrived in Manitoba as Frederick Philip Grove and claimed to be of Anglo-Swedish descent. He began his career as a Canadian writer from Rapid City in 1922, after spending the past decade teaching in remote districts of Manitoba. His first publication was the essay "Rousseau als Erzieher" (Der Nordwesten, 1914). During the same year, he married fellow teacher Catherine Wiens. He began studies at the University of Manitoba in 1915 and received a B.A. in French and German in 1922. In 1927, their daughter Phyllis May died shortly before her twelfth birthday. They relocated to Ontario and their son Leonard was born in Ottawa in 1930. Grove was now involved with Graphic Publishers and in ill health. He continued to write and publish from his estate until his death on August 19, 1948.

Grove received several honors that included the Lorne Pierce Medal in 1934, and two honorary doctorates from the University of Manitoba and Mount Allison University in 1946. His manuscripts were acquired in the early 1960's and since then, several related papers have been added to the collection, notably, the Spettigue collection documenting his German identity. The Grove Library Co