Richard Grove Obituary

Richard B. Grove, age 81, a resident of North Andover, formerly of Chelmsford, passed away peacefully at Lawrence General Hospital on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, surrounded by his loving family. He was the beloved husband of Nancy Y. (Young) Grove with whom he enjoyed 21 years of marriage.
He was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 4, 1943, and was the son of the late Roy and Susan (Hensley) Grove. Due to Roy's career with the Social Security Administration, Richard lived in a number of states during his youth. His high school years were spent in Carnegie Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1961 and was a National Merit Scholar. Richard earned a B.S. and M.S in Mathematics from Carnegie Tech in 1964 and 1965 respectively. He was a graduate student in the newly formed Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department through 1969. He specialized in programming language implementation and compilers, spending most of his career at his beloved Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). He joined DEC in 1971 and rose to the level of Corporate Consulting Engineer, the highest technical designation in the company. He was the project leader for the PDP-11 and VAX FORTRAN compilers, worked on VAX Ada V1, and was a founding member and leader of the GEM compiler project contributing technically to the code generation phases. He was a member of DEC's design team for the Alpha AXP calling standards and architecture and was a member of the ANSI X3.13 FORTRAN Committee. After the acquisition of portions of DEC by Intel, Richard continued at Intel until he retired in 2007. He was named an Intel Fellow in 2002 and was responsible for leading engineering efforts for advanced compiler technology and optimization. He was a lifetime member of the Association for Computing Machinery, joining it as a student in 1962 and maintaining membership until his death.
Richard had a lifelong passion for learning and was always sharing interesting articles on current events, science and technology with his family. In retirement, he was deeply involved in the Learning in Retirement Association (LIRA) at UMass Lowell. He served as the president of LIRA for 6 years and for many years coordinated and co-taught its Great Decisions series. He enjoyed travelling and learning about the history and culture of everywhere he went – especially if the history could include a ride on a train! His family fondly remembers his love of games, especially Liverpool Rummy and Ticket to Ride, and all the conversations we shared around the table while playing together. No family gathering was ever complete without at least one game. Richard enjoyed many visits to Camp Calumet over the years where both son Matt and grandson Tim served on the summer camp stuff; visits were especially fun if they could be combined with a ride on the North Conway scenic railway.
In addition to his loving wife Nancy, Richard is survived by his son Dave and spouse Laura Grove of Ridgefield Connecticut, son Matthew and spouse Diane Grove of Tewksbury Massachusetts, and son James and spouse Niki Paton of Denver, Colorado, his sister Linda and spouse Hidemi Kondo of Tokyo Japan, and brother Ken and spouse Sharon Grove of Boise, Idaho, and his grandchildren Amy, Tim, Alex, and Caroline Grove, and his nieces and nephews Kei Kondo, Bryan and Heather Grove. He is pre-deceased by his brother Robert and his beloved first wife of 36 years Karen (Hill) Grove.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in Richard's memory to Camp Calumet or Trinity Lutheran Church.
His Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 11:00 am at Trinity Lutheran Church, 170 Old Westford Rd, Chelmsford. Interment will be held privately.