August 15th, 2017

Harold David “H.D.” Groh was born on a farm near Preston (now Cambridge), Ontario, Canada on November 22, 1900.  He was the youngest of 11 children.  Cora Isabelle (Gingerich) Groh was born on a nearby farm on June 9, 1907, the seventh of 13 children.  Harold and Cora were married on June 29, 1929.  They had eight children, two of whom died in infancy.

In an era when most Mennonite farm children left school after grade eight, Harold Groh attended high school in Galt, earned a B.A. at McMaster University (then in Toronto, 1926) and while directing the Toronto Mennonite Mission, completed high school teaching qualifications at the Ontario College of Education (1944-1945).  Cora Gingrich was the first of her family to attend high school in Galt, then “normal school” (teacher training) in Toronto and to have a professional career.  Education was a given for their children, among whom are teachers, a minister, two doctors, one medical and one a physicist.

In the early 1940s, the Mennonite Conference of Ontario named a High School Committee to study a proposal to open a Mennonite High School.  Harold, conference secretary since his Toronto Mission years and long after,was a committee member.  Rockway Mennonite School opened in September 1945 with Harold as the founding principal.  He taught full time and did all the administrative and promotional work with no support staff.  His $1,500 starting salary had edged  up to a mere 2,400 by 1956.  Having struggled with being underpaid, both in Toronto and at Rockway while raising his family, Harold resigned in April 1956.  Harold accepted a teaching position in a public high school in Chatham, Ontario for one year and later in St. Catherines, Ontario (1960-1961).

In 1957 Harold and Cora accepted a Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities assignment to manage the Mennonite Centre in London, England.  The centre served as temporary lodging for students from commonwealth countries and mission workers enroute to and from North America, Africa and Asia.  London was the highlight of Cora’s life.

In 1960, Harold and Cora Groh returned to Ontario to public school teaching and pastoral ministry at Bloomingdale Mennonite Church until retirement.