Virgie Guinn Shore

Virgie Guinn Shore of Livermore died June 18. She was 85.

Shore was born in Lavaca, Arkansas on Oct. 20, 1928, the oldest of four children. Her parents, Ted and Sallie Rogers Guinn, brought her and her siblings to California in 1935 and settled with them in Porterville in the San Joaquin Valley, where she began school and later graduated from Porterville High School and Porterville College.

Shore was a serious and studious child and adult. Her father was a produce farmer and her mother worked right by his side to raise four children during the Great Depression. After completing two years at the local community college, Shore moved to Berkeley to complete her studies. While she was attending UC Berkeley, majoring in biochemistry, she met a young man who became her lab partner and later her husband. She married Bernard W. Shore in Berkeley in 1955 upon completing their Ph.D. work in biochemistry. In their early careers, they worked together teaching and doing research in Georgia and then later at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1963, they moved back to California to start a long career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where they had many friends.

Throughout their lives together they supported and enjoyed the arts. Shore was active in many organizations, served on many committees including the American Physiological Society, the NIH and the American Heart Association and generously supported the work of other researchers. She loved the SF Symphony, the SF Opera and was always interested in what was being studied in the scientific community even in retirement.

Everything and everyone she loved benefited from her personal attention and the articles and notes she passed along. Her detailed and persistent mind kept her active and interested after she retired in 1990.

Shore was preceded in death by her husband, Bernard Shore; her parents; her sister, Lois Campos, and her brother, Charles D. Guinn. She is survived by her brother, Robert J. Guinn of South San Francisco and his wife Lonnie; 10 nieces and nephews and many longtime friends, colleagues and respected research associates.

Those who knew and loved her will always remember her for her integrity, intelligence and loyalty to family and friends and her enjoyment of their happiness and success. She shared her love of art and the natural world with her family who knew that she held education as one of life's treasures and urged all of them to participate in it.

At Shore's request, no services were held and she was buried quietly near her husband in Livermore.