Clarence Grover was born in Amherst Maine and moved to Eddington Maine in 1913, at the age of sixteen. His father ran a store and sawmill and he had two sisters and one brother. When he was young, he worked in the sawmill his father ran and also drove a team of horses. He later worked in the woods. He married his wife, Lena, in 1930 and they had at least two children.