Albert Louis Kalman

Albert L. Kalman, the soft-spoken former proprietor of Kimball Camera and Cards in downtown Boston, died Saturday in the Miriam Boyd Parlin Hospice Residence in Wayland, where he had lived for 14 months. Mr. Kalman, 80, had Shy-Drager syndrome, a rare neurological disorder.

A tall, slim man who always wore a jacket and tie to work, Mr. Kalman was not an advocate of the hard sell, but he knew how to draw in his target audience of frugal Yankees.

"He was a wonderful salesman," his wife, Vivienne (Joffe) Silverstein Kalman, said yesterday. "He was very courteous and he trained his help to be consumer-friendly too."

At Kimball Camera and Cards the customer was always right. Returns were made with a smile and repairs were sometimes done for free. "He knew if he did it for free they'd come back," said his wife.

He owned and operated his camera and card shop for about 30 years, until 1983, when a new landlord took over the building and raised his rent.

Two years earlier, he had moved to Weston with his new wife, Vivienne. They had picked the town because it was in between Newton, where she had grown children, and Framingham, where his children lived. His first wife, Barbara (Millman), had died of cancer.

Mr. Kalman was born in Chelsea. After earning a bachelor's degree in engineering at Northeastern University, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Because of his scientific training, he was sent to the University of Chicago, where he earned a certificate in meteorology before becoming a weatherman, stationed in Georgia.

"He was always extremely interested in the weather," said his wife. "He could look at the clouds and the color of the sky and tell you what kind of weather was coming."

In his retirement, Mr. Kalman became a volunteer for RE-SEED (Retirees Advancing Science Education through Experiments and Demonstrations). He helped teach sixth-grade science classes in Newton for about eight years.

"It's like having a grandfather in the room who cares about the kids as much as I do," a teacher said of Mr. Kalman in a story published in the Globe in 1996.

A student was more succinct: "He's cool."

Mr. Kalman was a quiet and gentle man. "He did not like a lot of fanfare and was direct and honest to a fault," said his wife. "He did a lot of listening."

But he could be very funny. "If he blinked or curled his lips, you knew you were in for a joke," she said.

Wednesday night was pinochle night for Mr. Kalman, who answered an ad in a local newspaper placed by three players looking for a fourth to play the card game. Mr. Kalman was in his 70s when he joined. The other players were in their 80s and 90s. He got a big kick out of being the youngster of the group.

Mr. Kalman was a member of the congregation at Adams Street Synagogue in Newton, where he oversaw the kitchen. At one memorable Hanukkah celebration, he made 250 potato latkes, working with the aid of two assistants and a couple of frying pans. And after the party was over, when the congregants had left, he quietly mopped up the floor and turned out the lights.

Besides his wife, he leaves three daughters, Phyllis Rotberg and Meryl Lemeshow, both of Framingham, and Jeanne Shumrak of Natick; three stepchildren, Jamie Stolper of Newton, Norma Freeman of Ottawa, and Ross Silverstein of Weston; a sister, Helen Andler of Newton; and 16 grandchildren.