The year was 1892 and our great-grandfather, Fred F. Groff began a tradition of service in Quarryville, Pennsylvania. He moved the family business, which at the time also included a repair shop and cabinetmaking shop, to Lancaster in 1899, first to the back of the drugstore on Manor Street across from Christ Lutheran Church and soon after to 439 West Orange Street.
A year later, he took over 234 West Orange Street which also had rooms for the boarders our great-grandmother Edie wanted to take in. He finally settled on undertaking (as it was called then) and when Great-Grandfather died in 1938, his son, Robert F. Groff, Sr.,our grandfather, became president of a growing funeral home business.
Grandfather built the business even further by acquiring George High’s funeral home in New Holland in 1976 and Stanley Eckenroth’s funeral home in 1980. That same year our father, Bob Jr. took over as president of Fred F. Groff, Inc. Brother, Fred joined the firm in 1976 and in 1985 purchased the Groff-High-Eckenroth Funeral Home in New Holland and Terre Hill from the family business and managed them independently ever since. I (Lisa) joined Fred F. Groff, Inc. in 1991 where I was the pre-need manager until 2004.
Between 1980 and 1992 the Fred F. Groff, Inc. Funeral Home added the James C. Maneval Funeral Home in Williamsport, the William Spacht Funeral Home in Lititz, Spencer Wilkerson Funeral Home, the Coble and Reeber Funeral Homes in Middletown, Boyer Funeral Home in Elizabethtown, Smedley Funeral Home in Marietta, Rearick-Carpenter Funeral Home in Jersey Shore, Miller-Hawthorn Funeral Home in Bainbridge, and Fickenger Funeral Home in Coudersport.
In 1999 my family sold the business to Founders Service Corporation of Philadelphia, which operated the Fred F. Groff, Inc. business, at 234 West Orange Street, until mid- 2015, when Founders sold the business back to the Groff family -- thus reuniting the Original Groff home with the new Groff family home established by my brother Fred and I in 2010 at our current location at 528 West Orange Street.