George William Gove was born in Berwich, Maine and spent his boyhood in Groveland, Massachusetts where he enlisted in the 33rd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in June 1862. He participated in the Chattanooga-Ringgold campaign, the battles of Tunnell Hill and Missionary Ridge, and subsequently joined the Atlantic campaign and Sherman's march to the sea. After the war he entered business in Milwaukee, where he represented the firm of Edward Dewey and Company and its predecessors, Wholesale Grocers, until moving to Madison, Wisconsin in 1900.
George W. Gove's son, George R. Gove, was born in Milwaukee and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1904. He did graduate studies at Stanford University. In 1911, he became an assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, Walter L. Fisher. Mr. Gove helped to plan construction of low-rental housing in East Walpole, Massachusetts and Bridgeport, Connecticut from 1914 to 1917, then served with the American City Bureau from 1918 to 1922, the last two years as its vice-president and general manager. Mr. Gove was director of the New York State Housing Commission and executive head and secretary of the New York State Board of Housing in the 1920s and 1930s. He joined Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1939. Until retiring in 1952, he played a major role in the company's broad involvement in housing projects, and became vice-president in charge of housing. He oversaw the construction of Peter Cooper Village, Stuyvesant Town, and Parkchester in New York City. Besides the New York projects, he was responsible for similar developments near Washington, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. He worked briefly for the Atomic Energy Commission on its Oak Ridge Operations in 1950-1951. After leaving the Metropolitan, he served as a vice-president of the Fred F. French Investing Company for ten years. (More detailed accounts of George Gove's activities up to the time of his retirement from Metropolitan may be found in the insurance trade magazines, The Home Office, February 1952, p. 20 and The Eastern Underwriter, December 14, 1951, p. 36.)
Marguerite Pannill Gove, wife of George R. Gove, was a reporter for newspapers in St. Louis and Milwaukee, and produced, wrote, and directed several early educational films.
