Emmit Grove

Emmit "Tony" Grove, age 84, of Shawnee, OK passed away Monday, March 17, 2025.

Tony was born in Brownsville, Texas, October 1, 1940 to Phillip and Alberta Grove, the youngest of three children. At six months old, his family moved from Texas to a farm southwest of Wakita, Oklahoma.  He attended Gore Rural school from first grade until his junior year, and finished out his senior year at Wakita High, where he was on the football team.  His childhood, as he narrated it to us included stories about riding pigs, sawing off the top of a car, and being knocked off a stack of hay bales.  Some people may or may not have inherited that love of mischief.

After high school, Tony went to Northwestern State University in Alva for three years, where he met his wife Fern while she was working at a diner.  He was instantly smitten and persuaded her, with not much resistance, to marry him three months later.  This early success inspired in him a lifelong habit of flirting with waitresses, but he truly and wholly belonged to our mother. They married at the First Baptist Church in Alva on June 2, 1962, and moved to Wichita, Kansas soon after when Fern got a job teaching elementary school.  Tony got a job there working for Associated Labs as a medical technician.  

During the early years of their marriage, they fostered a family of three children whom they planned to adopt. But that plan didn’t go through when the kids were able to return to their birth mother.  The wish to take care of the kids was deeply characteristic of both Tony and Fern.  They have always had an immediate connection to, and heart for, anyone who they felt needed support or love.  As their daughter, I’d say in fact this is their defining legacy as a couple.  It is being the light of the world. 

In 1969, I (Phara) was born, followed in 1971 by my sister Amber.  They moved in 1972 to Halstead, Kansas, where Tony got a job at Hertzler Clinic.  He served as a deacon at his church and was elected to the local school board.  He loved building or working on outdoor projects—a treehouse, a shed, a garden—he was always imagining and pulling everyone into the next thing.  We took many summer evening walks through the neighborhood but could rarely get more than two blocks before we left him behind, having become enchanted and drawn into conversation with any neighbor who happened to be out watering the grass. He was attracted to people anywhere and everywhere, and if you’re  reading this and knew him, you know the gift of having someone that cheerful about seeing you.

At the age of 52, Tony retired from medical laboratory work to attend Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He had a dream of doing chaplaincy work, and got his chaplaincy certificate in 1994, after which he also completed his residency at Bethany Medical Center. Although he continued to minister to everyone he met, physical limitations that came with epilepsy prevented him from fulfilling his dream the way he had hoped.  Still, he and Fern moved back to Newton, Kansas in 2002, where he served as a part-time chaplain at Koerner Heights Mennonite Church, for two years.  

The couple finally returned to Oklahoma, where they’d begun, in around 2009, joining Amber and her husband Shawn in Shawnee, Oklahoma to be close to their four and, in time, six, grandchildren. Their church home was, and remains for Fern, Wesley United Methodist, where they found themselves forging new, but very dear, friends.  

Tony and Fern also have a granddaughter by husband Ben and I, who spent a year full of much joy living with them when our daughter was three years old.

When physical mobility increasingly became an issue for him, Tony continued to unflaggingly do whatever he could to bring joy to his and others’ lives.  He loved beauty in all forms.  He bought too many flower seeds and eagerly dreamt up gardens.  He adored music (he was a joyful singer and took violin lessons) and art. He even drew pictures (not many, very slowly, but so original!) and practiced calligraphy. He was exceedingly playful, bringing his high spirits to honkey-tonk and hymns alike. When we were children, he gleefully taught my sister and I to sing ‘Rye Whiskey’, and we gleefully sang it till mom would yell “Tony!!”. 

He loved Jesus with his whole being, and he brought joy, and he never dissembled. It’s impossible to say how we’ll live without him.  But I know he’d want us to let our pain turn us into people who can love each other and God and life more deeply. 

Tony is survived by his wife Fern, his two daughters Amber Crawley and Phara Charmchi, and seven grandchildren, as well as his beloved brother, Elmer Grove.  He was preceded in death by his own parents and by his sister, Ella Teders.  

In lieu of flowers, the family request gifts be sent to the Epilepsy Foundation of Oklahoma, or Wesley United Methodist Church of Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Memorial Service will be1:00 p.m., Saturday, March 22, 2025 at Wesley United Methodist Church, Shawnee, OK. Cremation arrangements by Cooper Funeral Home of Tecumseh.