When Grover Allen Zion was born on July 23, 1888, in Douglas, Missouri, his father, William, was 38 and his mother, Sarah, was 37. He had one son and one daughter between 1905 and 1908. Grover enlisted in April 1917, at Oklahoma City and was sent to the training camp at Ft. Bliss, Texas. He went overseas in the following June. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I as a Sergeant in Company E, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. Sgt. Zion's death occurred at Base Hospital 42, in Paris, October 6, 1918, a few weeks before the armistice was signed, ending the great world conflict in which he had played a man's part.