The funeral for Joan Groves will be held on Saturday, March 22, at 2:00pm. This service will be in-person only and will not be livestreamed.
Joan Gwen Groves, 82, died February 14, 2025 in Albany, CA. She was born December 26, 1942 to Gerald and Mildred Easterbrooks. Joan was a lifelong resident of Berkeley and active at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church there.
She attended the California School for the Blind (then located in Berkeley), and graduated from Berkeley High School. She completed a bachelor degree in sociology at the University of California Berkeley. She read widely, using both braille and talking books.
Despite being blind from birth, Joan was highly mobile and self-sufficient, traveling the Bay Area with the aid of a cane or guide dog. While riding an Alameda County Transit bus in Berkeley, she met driver Vincent Groves. He was especially helpful and supportive of Joan, his regular passenger. They eventually fell in love and married, traveling widely together both in the United States and abroad. Vincent died in 1996.
Joan had a long career as senior rehabilitation counselor for the California State Department of Rehabilitation, working first from the Oakland office, and later in Berkeley. Her work focused on meeting with blind clients, assisting them with their career goals, and arranging for evaluations, education, training and job placement.
Joan spent her last years at Belmont Senior Living in Albany where she made many friends and built a lovely community. The family would like to thank the staff and administrators there for the professional care and kindly assistance they rendered to Joan.