George ‘Buddy’ Grover III
George H. “Buddy” Grover III, of Atlantic City, who charmed and enlightened thousands of visitors to Atlantic City during 14 years as a keeper at the Absecon Lighthouse, died at his home there Jan. 4. He was 96.
Buddy, who was frequently featured in newspapers and magazines and on numerous television and radio stations, was not only well known in the lighthouse circles, but was also a beloved figure in the community and a tourism ambassador for Atlantic City. Being a lighthouse keeper at his age was a novelty that attracted media attention from far and wide, but for those who knew him, it was just the pinnacle of an amazing life.
Buddy was born Sept. 24, 1927, in Hamilton Square and attended what is now known as Hamilton High School West. He briefly attended Rutgers University until he received a draft notice in the summer of 1945. With World War II winding down, he failed the physical and the Army rejected him – although he was convinced the Army was turning away almost everyone because the need for new recruits had fallen dramatically. Two months later, he joined the Marine Corps and a year after that he received a Navy ROTC scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He fit in well to the gentile Southern lifestyle, often escorting debutantes to cotillion balls.
After working at the Carolina Inn for a while, Buddy moved back north in 1956, to be closer to his aging parents and found a job in the Shelburne Hotel in Atlantic City. Eight years later, at the age of 38, he went to work for the United States Post Office as a letter carrier – in large part because the job offered a good pension. Buddy told friends that in his 22-year career as a mail carrier, he worked every block on every street in every neighborhood in Atlantic City. And decades after he retired at the age of 60, he said grown men and women he saw on the street or on the bus would recognize him as the mailman they knew from their childhood.
He may have retired, but Buddy wasn’t ready to slow down. Instead, he went to work part-time for the City of Atlantic City driving senior citizens to doctors’ offices, dialysis treatments and to other appointments. The part-time nature of it gave him more time to travel with his wife, Aurora. They visited far-off places including South Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia and South America, and they also spent winter months in her native Spain.
It was shortly after his wife passed away in 2008, that Buddy began volunteering at the Absecon Lighthouse. Soon he was donning a replica of a U.S. Lighthouse Service keeper’s uniform and climbing the 228 steps to the top of the lighthouse on a regular basis. Atop the lighthouse, he met people from every walk of life and from every continent (except Antarctica), and he treated all of them the same – with a warm smile, amusing anecdotes, historical insights and answers to virtually any question posed to him. People were always awed when he told them how old he was and he often would joke and say he was the “future ghost of the Absecon Lighthouse.”
Buddy was twice honored as the lighthouse’s Volunteer of the Year, and he was recognized by the New Jersey Lighthouse Society in 2022 “for outstanding achievement to educate, inform and generate appreciation for lighthouses.” He also served on the Board of Directors.
Outside of the lighthouse, Buddy was a natty dresser who enjoyed socializing with friends and putting on his tux to attend gala events such as the Miss America and the Miss’d America pageants. He enjoyed socializing with friends at clubs around the city – most recently at the Vue Lounge atop the Claridge Hotel, a building almost as old as he was.
Buddy’s lifelong love of organ music led him to volunteer with the Historic Organ Restoration Committee which is restoring the gigantic pipe organ in the Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall. With more than 33,000 pipes, it is the largest musical instrument in the world. Buddy said his job often involved slipping his slim body – he told people he never weighed more than 150 pounds – into exceedingly tight spaces to reach parts of the organ. He also served on the Historic Organ Restoration Committee Board and was treasurer of the Southeast Jersey Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Buddy was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity, a lifetime member of the General Alumni Association of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the National Association of Letter Carriers. He was active in the vestry and the treasury of the Church of the Ascension in Atlantic City and was involved in many of the church’s outreach programs. After the church closed and the building was demolished, he became active in the Church of the Redeemer in Longport where he often served as a reader during Sunday services.
Buddy often told friends that hoped to live to be 100, noting that family his siblings and other members lived very long lives. But as that milestone grew closer he revised his goal adding five more years after hearing a dear friend sing Frank Sinatra’s tune “Young At Heart” at Buddy’s birthday party. The song ends with the lines: “And if you should survive to 105 / Look at all you’ll derive / Out of being alive / And here is the best part / You’ve had a head start / If you are among the very / Young at heart.”
In addition to his enormous circle of friends, Buddy is survived by his nieces and nephews, Lynn Lucchini (Peter) of San Diego, California, Jill Decker (Richard) of McMinnville, Oregon, Patricia Sprague of Sellicks Beach, South Australia, Brad Smith (Anne) of Fairfield, California and Scott Smith of Scott’s Valley, California. He is also survived by nine grandnieces and grandnephews; six great-grand nephews and great-grandnieces and one great great-grandnephew.
He is predeceased by his parents, Helen Kugler Grover and George Hill Grover, Jr.; his sister, Jane Grover-Smith; and his wife, Aurora Martinez.
There will be a celebration of Buddy’s life later this year.
Arrangements are entrusted to Greenidge Funeral Homes, Atlantic City, where condolences and photographs may be shared at www.greenidgefuneralhomes.com.
