Albert talks enthusiastically about computers
and his role in the computer lab at Edenwald.

A newcomer to Edenwald who needs help with anything involving a computer will likely be advised to see the “Computer Man.” Edenwald is a continuing care retirement community in Towson, Maryland, and the Computer Man is Albert Keller. Albert spends many of his waking hours in Edenwald’s computer room—he calls it the computer lab—helping and encouraging his fellow residents to navigate in cyberspace.

A visitor to Albert in the computer lab a few months ago found him sitting at a computer printer reassuring an anxious woman standing next to him that he would solve the problem she had been having. He encouraged her to go on to keep an appointment she had while he worked on it. After a few minutes of tinkering, a gratified “ah ha!” from Albert signified that the problem had been resolved. A printer cartridge had not been completely installed.

Albert contemplates the problem.

Albert oversees the computer room at Edenwald with the help of the other member of the computer committee. If anyone has had a problem at any time with one of the computers in the lab, Albert is eager to hear about it. “Call me,” he says, “and I’ll get it fixed for the next person.” He doesn’t have a PC in his own apartment, because, he says, if he did, that’s where he’d be, almost all the time.

Albert lives at Edenwald with his wife Miriam. He was a widower and she a widow when they married over 25 years ago. Albert has two sons and his wife has a daughter and a son. Her son, Garth Baxter, is well known as a composer for the classical guitar and was described in a piece in Soundboard Magazine in 1993 as one of the leading composers for voice and guitar in the twentieth century.

There's the problem, easy to fix.

In a brief stroll with a visitor down the corridor outside the lab, Albert greeted and was greeted by over a dozen residents and staff. When he gets a chance, Albert tries, very diplomatically, to encourage fellow residents to make use of the computer lab, especially if they have been hesitant about using PCs.

Albert was born in 1930 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up there. He was graduated from Perry High School in 1948. No other schools after that, he says, "just the hard way!” He laid the foundation for his computer know-how with three free lessons at a public library.

His first job was in 1945 at the Isaly Dairy Store in Pittsburgh, where he worked up to Assistant Manager. After graduation from high school in 1948 he worked in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, at a facility owned by what was then the Standard Steel Spring Company (it later became the Rockwell Spring and Axle Company). He started in the Personnel Department (it would now be called “Human Resources”) and for a time worked as an assistant to the Master Mechanic. “I was his understudy,” Albert says.

Triumph! Albert smiles, pleased and gratified.

From there, Albert went to a job with the Eichleay Corporation in 1953, in Pittsburgh, and soon became an office manager in the South Chicago area. In 1971 Albert started working for Sears, in sales, first in Inglewood, California, and eventually in Santa Monica, where he managed payroll and worked in Human Resources. He retired in 1990 and he and his wife moved to the Maryland area, where their families were.

Albert’s advice for seniors interested in learning to use PCs can be summed up in one word—“Patience.” “If you don’t have patience,” says Albert, “forget it.” He did have one more tip. He is enthusiastic about a computer mouse that serves as a magnifier. You can find one by searching in Google for “mouse magnifier” or, if you are lucky, by asking Albert.

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