His great-grandfather, Henry Chatillon, guided Francis Parkman on his tour of the Great Plains, from which evolved the classic book, The Oregon Trail.
The ten-year-old boy was visiting relatives in Fairfax, Oklahoma, when a wealthy Indian woman's house exploded, killing her and two family members.
A subsequent FBI investigation resulted in prison sentences for two white men, one a cattleman and leading citizen of Fairfax — the other the son-in-law of the murdered woman.
"[citation needed] A number of years later, Grove met the FBI agent who directed the investigation, and they collaborated on a non-fiction book about the incident, but were unable to find a publisher.
Grove had attempted to write westerns after World War II, and interviewed "a lot of Oklahoma pioneers" while working as a reporter for the Shawnee Morning News.
He sold his first short story, "The Hangman Ghost" to .44 Western Magazine in 1951, and taught beginning reporting at the University of Oklahoma as well as a public relations course.
He later served as public information director of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority "until the politicians got hold of OETA, demanding that the staff perform like trained seals."
Notable among Grove's later fiction is the series of five Jesse Wilder novels set during and after the American Civil War: Bitter Trumpet, Trail of Rogues, Man on a Red Horse, Into the Far Mountains, and A Soldier Returns.