By Annie Groom Jeffs 15 July, 1932

Nathan Groom Sr. was born on 18 July at Breachwood Green, Kings Walden, Herts [Hertfordshire], England in the year 1837. He joined the L. D. S. church in 1857. His father died when he was a small boy making it so he had to make his living in the world at a tender age and lots of times knew what it was to go hungry.

He use to drive horses for the men that plowed the fields of the rich land owners so he was called a plow boy and some times those old plowmen were very mean to their boys, if they did not do things just as they thought they should be done. They hired out to the Farmer from one year to another for so much money and that made it binding for the year. If you ran away, the law could bring you back. He use to get on the right side of the servant girls and they would bring him out some good food to eat. This helped him out as a boy for he had to help his mother out what he could as she was left with seven small children and he was next to the youngest.

As he grew to manhood he met and married Emma Elizabeth Hill and went to live on Chilton Green^[1]. He use to drive a cart and horse. One day the horse ran away with the cart and mother saw it and ran out of the house. She thought father had been thrown out of the cart and hurt or killed but he was not in the cart when the horse started. I don't know what kind of hauling he was doing at this time.

He lived in this place until after his third child was born, a girl named Emily^[2]. When his first son was born he was so pleased when they came and told him it was a boy he threw his hat up in a tree and I don't know whether he had to climb the tree to get it down or not. There was a large rooster on the place and he got after father. He wore leather leggins and he jumped at him and struck his spurs right through the leggins.

Father was of a roving disposition and looking for better places and he moved his family to a place called Kimpton and there he ran a beer house for the brewery and he looked after the gentlemen's garden and place, and also milked a cow for them. Myself and oldest brother, Nate, use to go and stand at the barn door and watch him milk, and he would turn up the cows teat and squirt the milk in our faces and then laugh at us.

He use to be very fond of cricket matches and use to go a long ways to the games. I remember him and his brother-in-law, Frank Crain, going to one on Chilton Green and they took me and my brother, Nate, along with them. They had to carry us children on their shoulders part of the way. There was no other way of going in that day, only on foot. Father took us to the booth where they were serving lunches and I remember what a large plate of food he got for each of us and left us there while he was playing cricket.

We stayed at Kimpton until my brother, Henry, was about 3 months old and then father moved his family to Ireland. We stayed there 18 months. He was game keeper for Major Moloney and we lived in a large house with 14 rooms and every thing furnished besides our bed clothes and food and the clothes we wore. We had to sell our furniture and buy new when we returned. Major Moloney was a man that soon got tired of his men and liked new faces, so father packed up again and returned to Manchester, England.

While in Manchester he worked in a large grain warehouse where they handled all kinds of grain, beans and hay. While there handling those large sacks of grain, he would kink his back and would come home all doubled up. Mother would put a blanket on his back and use a hot iron on it for awhile and he would leave and he would go back to work again. While in Manchester his family took whooping cough and had it so bad the doctor told father if he did not take his family into the country, he would loose them all, so he moved again and went to Ellenbrook where he worked as Lord Elsmere's game keeper. In the summer he would get settin[g] hens from the farmers and raise pheasants which are larger than American pheasants. He watched that no poachers came and stole the rabbits at night. He looked after two large woods that nothing got in to frighten the game away.

One Sunday afternoon father was taking a walk and looked over the meadows. He saw a man with a large gray hound and the man had just started the dog after a large hare. Father took off his shoes and started after the man. They ran for about two miles and he got his man who had a long way head start of him. That shows his strength and endurance.

He left again this place and this time left old England for good and immigrated to America in 1884^[3] and made his home in Utah. His first job was working for the Deseret Paper Mill where he earned the money to send for his wife, oldest son and youngest son a year afterwards.

His first home was a poor place and he did not do very good on that place so the second fall, Mont Huffaker came and saw him and got him to go and rent one of his father's places where he did better. He lived in Utah for about.five years.

He moved again, this time to Idaho and landed in Idaho Falls. He looked around for a place that would be his own someday. The first year he farmed in Lewisville for Margaret Boise, afterwards came back again to his own homestead and there helped make canals and cleared the sage and made the desert blossom like the rose. He also owned in the Groom and Son store at Ucon. He did prosper and get wealthy and lived on the old homestead the rest of his life. He died Friday, the 9th of February at the age of 94 (1931). He lived in Idaho for 43 years and was buried in about the worst blizzard of the winter in Ucon. He had seven children, 27 grand children, 64 great grand children and 3 great great grand children and for a time there was 5 generations living in his family.

Annie Jeffs