He calls himself a computer nerd, but 78-year-old John Dickmann is more of a computer evangelist.
Dickmann has taken it upon himself to preach the power of technology to his peers. On many Wednesdays, he can be found teaching a SeniorNet computer class at the Pavilion Senior Center in Wheeling.
The non-profit SeniorNet (www.seniornet.com) has a single purpose for its 220 learning centers around the country: to teach people over the age of 50 how to enhance their lives with technology. Introductory computer training courses cover such topics as Internet searches, designing a home page and auctioning items on eBay.
The entire program is run by volunteers, and the long-retired Dickmann (he was a regional manager for the petroleum chemicals division of DuPont until 1985) teaches because he gets to talk about his two passions: technology and family.
Dickmann, one of three children and the father of six, is a genealogy buff. The seeds of his love for family history were planted in the German farm country of southern Illinois.
“Young people were told, `If you ever get interested in someone of the opposite sex, look at their family because that’s what you’re going to get,'” he recalled seriously.
Over the years, between visits and long conversations with his dad, aunts and uncles, Dickmann assembled a large box of family information. “Then after I retired, I decided to organize it,” he said.
It’s a good thing that Dickmann’s wife, Pat, then dragged him “kicking and screaming into the computer world” when she got him a used 386 personal computer for his 68th birthday a decade ago. He bought Broderbund’s popular Family Tree Maker software (currently available for about $50 on Amazon.com) and the love affair began.
“I now have over 2,200 names in my family tree program,” he said. To build that kind of list, Dickmann has visited Germany, England, the U.S. National Archives in Maryland (www.archives.gov), and the Ft. Wayne, Ind., public library.
“I used to spend hours and hours working on it,” he said. “There’s a group of us working on this, and when somebody finds something new, we send it around so that everybody can enter it [into their Family Tree program].”
But Dickmann’s use of his PC goes far beyond the family tree software. A few years ago he finished his 244-page autobiography (called “Dad Why Don’t You Write Some of This Stuff Down”). Using PhotoParade Maker (about $20 at www.photoparade.com), Dickmann put the book onto CD-ROMs, added a text file containing the 2,200-name family tree and included a digital family photo album.
“I sent the CD-ROM to 56 of my relations, mostly cousins,” he said, along with a letter containing detailed instructions on how to access the information.
When Dickmann tells the story to his SeniorNet students in Wheeling, his passion shows.
“I tell them, look, we’re not going to be here much longer and if we don’t pass this stuff on, it’s gone.”
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Contact alex@tekTOUR.com.
