Albert Garner, 88, would make up stories to capture his children’s attention, including the tales of a character he named “Dimi”
When Springfield resident Albert Garner would travel with his wife and four children to different parts of the country to go camping or visit relatives in the early 1960s, there was no TV or satellite radio available in the car like today to distract them during the long drives.
So Garner, now 88, would make up stories to capture his children’s attention, including the tales of a character he named “Dimi” who was only 5 inches tall and loved to read and imagine his own adventures.
“When my daughter Christina was about 15 she would ask me, ‘Daddy, when are you going to write these stories down, so someday I can read them to my kids,’” he said. “She’s in her 50s now and I just got around to writing these down.”
Albert Garner’s wife, Geraldine “Gerry” Garner, added, “It seems as if Dimi came alive and became a person that all of us wanted to know about. When we camped we would sometimes be on the road for six to eight hours,” she said. “That’s why his storytelling would fill in the time.”
Last year, Albert Garner, a retired organic chemist, published an illustrated children’s book called “The Adventures of Dimi,” based on the stories he shared with his family. While Dimi (his name is short for “diminutive”) eventually grows into a full-sized adult and has his own family, his innocent curiosity, about a world so different from those around him, lead him to encounter many escapades, often times with small animals and insects.
When he began writing the book in 2011—after having become a great-grandfather—Albert Garner said he partly relied on the travels he took with his wife to provide adventures for Dimi to imagine.
“Dimi was a good reader, and because of that, he dreamed about places, like visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or riding an elephant in India, or seeing kangaroos in Australia,” he said. “The emphasis of the book is that if kids read, they can go anywhere through their reading.”
Due to Dimi’s small size, he was not able to go out and play with other children, so his father built him a birdfeeder by a window in the house, where he would talk about all the different kinds of birds he saw, Albert Garner said. Dimi also liked to make angels in the snow that piled up on the windowsills, or learn his numbers by counting the drips falling off icicles, he said.
Before he wrote “The Adventures of Dimi” in 1996, Albert Garner published “Analytical Phonics: An Aid to Teaching Reading,” which came out of his experiences as a tutor for more than 20 years, with his wife, for the Adult Literacy Program at the Roland T. Heacock Center for Cultural Enrichment in Springfield. The book was geared for teachers and tutors to help them teach others to read, he said.
Albert Garner retired in 1986, after working more than 30 years as a chemist and research fellow for the Monsanto Chemical Co., most recently in Springfield, and earlier in Dayton, Ohio and St. Louis, Mo. Prior to that he earned bachelor and master’s degrees in chemistry, from Howard University in D.C., before earning a doctorate in chemistry, from Pennsylvania State University. The D.C. native served as a corporal for the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.
Geraldine Garner, 88, has also authored books. In 2009 she independently published “Generations Build the Future: Positives Needed Now!,” a nonfiction book in which older generations tell how they became who they are spiritually, physically and mentally, in order to make a positive impact on the next generation, she said.
“If we listen to the stories of the past, then we would realize that the negatives talked about in the news everyday should not be more than all the positives in our lives,” she said. “The book is supposed to inspire today’s people to be more positive in their thinking.”
Geraldine Garner, who plans to write a sequel to the book, is a former English teacher in the Baltimore public school system.
The couple were the 2011 recipients of the 20th annual Ubora Award. The award, which means excellence in Swahili, is given by the African Hall subcommittee of the Springfield Museums to those who have made a significant contribution to the Greater Springfield Area.
For Albert Garner, “The Adventures of Dimi” is also a book that promotes the positives of an inspiring character.
“There are no monsters or horrible stories. It’s just the bright imagination of a young boy,” he said.
Albert Garner will be signing his book at a book fair March 22, from noon to 4 p.m., at the Springfield Central Library.
The book, published through Outskirts Press, with illustrations by Sally Taylor, is available on amazon.com