Vincent George Groves

VINCENT GEORGE GROVES March 27, 1927 - January 21, 2008 Vincent George Groves, 80, of Berkeley, California, died January 21, 2008 at an assisted living facility in Danville. Born March 27, 1927, Groves attended San Mateo High School. He joined the Merchant Marine at age 16 and sailed on cargo ships as an oiler plying the dangerous North Atlantic shipping routes during World War II, especially carrying supplies to the Russian port of Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean. After the war, he returned to the Bay Area to study math and play football at San Jose State College. Groves left California in the mid 1950s and attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where he studied architecture. He also had a brief modeling career and was featured in Ebony Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. Groves enjoyed the New York Bohemian scene in lower Manhattan in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was a coffee house regular. From New York he moved to Chicago to work with Byline Motion Picture Productions. While in Chicago he began a career as a sales representative for the beer industry, which he continued in Los Angeles with Lucky Lager and ABC Liquors. From 1968 to 1980 Groves was an AC Transit bus driver, and then worked in the company's general office until his retirement in 1997. During these years he was also a freelance photographer and many of his portraits of bus drivers and other company employees decorate the AC Transit general office building and the ATU #192 union hall. In addition to his local fame as a pastel portrait artist, he enjoyed flying private airplanes with his father-in-law Gerry Easterbrooks of Berkeley. Groves is survived by his wife, Joan Gwen Groves of Berkeley, daughters Anita Burton of San Francisco and Gina Lauderdale of Pasadena, sons Brigardo Groves of San Francisco and David Groves of San Mateo, stepdaughter Mona Rhinehardt of Virginia Beach, VA, and stepson Burt Tardy of Minnesota. A memorial service for Vincent Groves will be held at the ATU #192 union hall in Oakland, 8460 Enterprise Way, on Feb. 17 at 3 PM.