Alice Collins Plebuch, or Grandma Nerd, as her grandkids call her, is good at solving puzzles. She was among the first wave of computer programmers—when that term meant punching information on cards to be fed into mainframes. She has an analytical mind and is at ease with technology. Years ago, she began digging into her father’s history, hoping to find more about the man who’d grown up in an Irish-Catholic orphanage in New York.

Get in-depth coverage of current and future trends in technology, and how they are shaping business, entertainment, communications, science, politics, and society.

Advertisement