November 22 in A.A. History

In 1912, in Manchester, Vermont, the Rev. Sidney Warlow of Arlington, assisted by the Revs. William F. Weeks, bishop-coadjutor of Shelburne, and Philip Schuyler of Bennington, conducted the funeral of 18-year-old Miss Bertha Bamford at Zion Episcopal Church [right: interior], where her father served as rector.

    Newspaper accounts [left: Bennington Evening Banner, 23 Nov 1912] noted the “profusion of beautiful flowers” and “the floral tributes.” The Manchester Village and Manchester Center schools were closed to allow teachers and students to participate. Nearly all the Burr & Burton students—about 70 in total, including Bill W.—attended as a group and marched together to the vault at Manchester Center, where Miss Bamford’s remains were temporarily laid. The pallbearers were Prof. James Brooks, Prof. Walter Shaw, Bill W., Clifford Wilson, Roger Perkins, and John Jackson. Miss Bamford’s remains were later taken to Jeffersonville, Indiana, for burial.
    Miss Bamford was the classmate and first love of Bill W. Nearly all the students from Burr & Burton—about 70 altogether, including Bill—attended as a body and marched as such to the vault at Manchester Center in which Miss Bamford’s remains were temporarily placed.

In 1928, Bill W. wrote a second pledge in the family Bible: “Thanksgiving Day 1928. My strength is renewed a thousandfold in my love for you” [right]. Below this, he would write two more pledges before he stopped making them.

November 21 in A.A. History

In 1939, four men held the first A.A. meeting on the North American West Coast in Ray W.’s room at the Clift Hotel [near right, c. 1930] on Geary St. in San Francisco, California. Here’s how it came about.

    In April, Morgan R. [far right]—an A.A. member, former ad man, asylum patient, and friend of the host—had been a guest on Gabriel Heatter’s nationally broadcast radio show, We the People. Morgan had briefly shared his story and concluded by mentioning the newly published book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Mrs. Gordon Oram, who ran a boarding house at 51 Potomac St. [far left, recent] in San Francisco, heard the broadcast. She had been concerned about one of her boarders, Ted C. His drinking had led to multiple stays in state hospitals and jails, and he considered himself one of the “worst alcoholics” in the state. Mrs. Oram wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation office in New York City and obtained a copy of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, for Ted [near left: plaque at 51 Potomac St.].

    Others in the Bay Area had also heard the program or read Morris Markey’s article, “Alcoholics and God,” in the September 30th issue of Liberty magazine; they too had contacted the Alcoholic Foundation office. So when New York A.A. member Ray W. came to San Francisco for sales training in November, he brought a list of all who had inquired. From his room in the Clift Hotel, Ray called each person and arranged a meeting in his room.
    In addition to Ray and Ted, Don B. and Dave L. also attended. The meeting lasted two hours. Ray shared his list of local contacts with the three men, and all four began reaching out to the others, who were from Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, and San Francisco.
    Bill W. would vividly describe the historic meeting and its immediate aftermath in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (p. 88):

    Ray had been an atheist and he still stuck to it.... He said, “Now, boys, this A.A. is great stuff. It really saved my life. But there’s one feature of it I don't like. I mean this God business. So when you read this book [the Big Book], you can skip that part of it.” Ten days later, Ray was on his way back East, leaving a shivering and divided group in his wake.

    But they soon found… Dr. Percy Poliak [right], a psychiatrist who had been impressed with A.A. as he had seen it at work in Bellvue Hospital in New York. Now at the San Francisco County Hospital, Dr. Poliak gave the group his full support.… Mrs. Oram… opened her flat for the first [sic] A.A. meeting late in 1939, where salesman Ray’s contacts foregathered with Ted.
    Ted never made the grade. But one John C. did, and he has stayed in the clear ever since. Soon these were joined by Fred and Amy C. and a little bit later by King, Ned and others. At this stage there was plenty of slipping and backsliding. But, encourage by Mrs. Oram and Dr. Poliak, the group somehow held together.
    From New York we began writing letters to San Francisco, but the replies were sketchy and uncertain. At the end of a year an alky lady appeared at our New York office on Vesey Street. She was a little tight, and crying. Though of course she exaggerated a bit, she said, “Bill, we've been going a whole year in San Francisco, and do you know that at Christmas time we were all drunk.”

In 1942, the Lakewood Group, located near Cleveland, Ohio, celebrated its third anniversary at Townsend Hall in Lakewood. The December 1942 Central Bulletin reported, “A pot-luck supper was served and cards and games followed. A large crowd enjoyed the festivities.”

In 1952, Rev. Willard S. Richardson [right], 86, died. He was A.A.'s first connection to the Rockefeller Foundation in October 1937. Affectionately known as “Uncle Dick,” he served as the treasurer of the Alcoholic Foundation and later became the Chairman of the Board.

November 20 in A.A. History

In 1923, Bill W. left Brooklyn Law School [left: the Brooklyn Eagle Building, home of the Law School from 1904–28] for good. He was in the process of retaking a class he had failed earlier in the year, which prevented him from graduating as expected in June. Contrary to what his wife would later write in her memoir, Lois Remembers, he never completed the requirements for a law degree.

In 1939, in Cleveland, Ohio, the Orchard Group split from the newly formed Borton Group and convened at 15909 Detroit Ave. [right: recent picture of the location]. There were eleven original members, led by William B., Warren C., William L., and Edward H. The group’s secretary was Elvira B., William B.’s wife. Later, the group would change its name to the Lakewood Group.

In 1941, The Fresno Bee in California published a three-page article [left] titled “Alcoholics Plead for Aid in Correcting Drink Problems.” It reported on reader responses to the formation of Fresno’s first A.A. group, which had been announced the previous week. The article noted

    … a welcome response from twenty-eight persons seeking aid in solving their excessive drinking problems. Some of the messages were from wives and mothers asking for help for husbands and wives.… Membership in the local chapter has increased from three to fifteen and plans have been outlined for the first meeting.… The meetings will be conducted following rules established in other chapters. Each member takes his turn as chairman and conducts the meeting as he sees fit.… Alcoholics Anonymous is not a reform group. There is no religious affiliation and members are not concerned with prohibition.… One of the letters to the chapter requested women be included in the membership. This is being considered by the members and it is expected arrangements will be made for feminine affiliation in the near future. Plans will be made for dances and card parties.

November 19 in A.A. History

In 1840, the Washingtonian Temperance Society held its first public meeting, setting off the rapid growth of the movement. They received widespread and enthusiastic support from thousands of existing temperance societies, as the Washingtonians successfully mobilized public attention for temperance through their “experience sharing” of alcoholic debauchery, followed by inspiring accounts of personal reformation [left: Washingtonian pledge card].
    One of the movement’s leaders remarked,

    There is a prevalent impression, that none but reformed drunkards are admitted as members of the Washingtonian Society. This is a mistake. Any man may become a member by signing the pledge, and continue so by adhering to it.

In 1912, Bill W. hurried into the chapel at Burr and Burton Academy and took his seat with the other students, believing that his first love, Bertha Bamford, was in New York City with her family. Nothing could have prepared him for what was to come. His later recollections included the following:

    The principal of the school came in and announced with a very grave face that Bertha, the minister’s daughter and my beloved, had died suddenly and unexpectedly the night before. It was simply a cataclysm of such anguish as I’ve since had but two or three times. It eventuated in what was called an old-fashioned nervous breakdown, which meant, I now realize, a tremendous depression [right: Bertha’s obituary, The Bennington (Vermont) Evening Banner, 19 Nov 1912, p. 1].…
    Interest in everything except the fiddle collapsed. No athletics, no schoolwork done, no attention to anyone. I was utterly, deeply, and compulsively miserable, convinced that my whole life had utterly collapsed.…
    The healthy kid would have felt it badly, but he would never have sunk so deep or stayed submerged for so long.…
    The upshot was that I failed German and, for that reason, could not graduate. Here I was, president of my senior class… and they wouldn’t give me a diploma! My mother arrived, extremely angry, from Boston. A stormy scene took place in the principal’s office. Still, I didn’t get that diploma.…
    I could not be anybody at all. I could not win, because the adversary was death. So my life, I thought, had ended then and there.

In 1935, Ebby T. came to live with Bill and Lois W. at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn [left, c. 1940].

In 1939, Cleveland, Ohio’s first Spanish-speaking meeting, Grupo Serenidad (Serenity Group), was founded—just three days after the Borton Group, the city's longest-running A.A. group and the first anywhere without a connection to the Oxford Group. There are no known records of Grupo Serenidad's subsequent activities or its demise.

In 1941, The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) published “New Way Out for Hopeless Drinkers” [right] by Edith Johnson. It began,

    Because they known just how it feels to be befogged and sick and thoroughly miserable through days or weeks or months of intoxication Alcoholics Anonymous are having success in helping others to discard the drink habit that is no less than startling.

November 18 in A.A. History

In 1912, Bill W.’s schoolmate and first love, Bertha Bamford [left, with Bill], 18, died from a hemorrhage following surgery to remove a tumor at Flower Free Surgical Hospital [right, c. 1890s–1910s] on York Ave (nee Eastern Blvd) between 63rd and 64th Sts. in New York City. She was the daughter of Julia Read and Rev. Walter H. Bamford, the rector of Zion Episcopal Church in Manchester, Vermont.

In 1946, the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in Ireland—and indeed in Europe—was held in the home of one of the S. brothers in Rathmines [left, c. 1940s], a suburb of Dublin. It is believed that seven members attended this inaugural meeting: Conor Flynn, Richard P., Jimmy R., Jimmy the Teacher, brothers Matt S. and Leo S., and another man.

    Conor F. [right] had immigrated to the U.S. from County Roscommon, Ireland, and had gotten sober in 1943 in Philadephia, Pennsylvania. He and his wife were on vacation in Ireland when she read an Evening Mail interview with  Father Tom Dunlea, who was also vacationing, from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. In addition to discussing his “Boys Town Home” project, he spoke at length about the success of the Sydney A.A. group with which he was involved. This interview marked the first introduction of A.A. to the general public in Ireland, prompting Conor’s wife to suggest that he take action to start A.A. in Ireland.
    While in Derry, Conor tried to generate interest but was told that there were no alcoholics in the north and that he should try the south. In the south, he was advised that problem drinkers should join the Pioneers (Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, an international association of Roman Catholic teetotalers). He also gave an interview to the Evening Mail, providing a box number for the paper to share with anyone interested in contacting him. He received a letter from a man requesting that his brother be contacted. The brother was reached, but he replied, “He’s the one you should talk to,” i.e., the letter writer.

    Just as Conor was about to accept defeat, he met Eva Jennings, who was staying at his hotel, the Abbotsford Hotel [left: advertisement] on Harcourt Street in Dublin. They met for breakfast, and he confided in her about the difficulties he was facing in starting A.A. in Dublin. She was sympathetic and advised him to meet with Dr. Norman Moore, head of St. Patrick’s (psychiatric) Hospital [right] , where a close relative of hers was under his care. Conor met with Dr. Moore, who had read about A.A. in Reader's Digest, and gave him a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous (the “Big Book”). Dr. Moore remarked about one of his patients, Richard P., “whom he feared he might be saddled with for life,” saying, “If you [Conor] can help this man, I’ll believe in A.A. 100 percent!” Dr. Moore introduced Conor to Richard, who expressed interest and was then escorted to Conor’s hotel. The two men ‘clicked,’ and Richard P. was subsequently discharged from the hospital.
    Together, the two men arranged the first closed meeting in Dublin. Both brothers Matt and Leo S., who had each considered the other alcoholic, but not themselves, joined; ironically, the first public meeting of A.A. was held in one of their homes.

November 17 in A.A. History

In 1943, the first meeting of the Board of Trustees of The Alcoholic Foundation, Inc. was held. Originally incorporated as a trust, it would later be reorganized as a membership corporation. The number of trustees was increased from seven to nine. Leonard Harrison [near right] was the first President. A. LeRoy Chipman [far right] joined the board as a Class A Trustee and served until December 1954. He continued to serve as Trustee Emeritus from January 1955 until his death in December 1964.

November 16 in A.A. History

In 1939, the first meeting of the Borton Group—the longest continuously meeting group in Cleveland, Ohio, and the first Ohio group ever to be unaffiliated with the Oxford Group—was held at 2427 Roxboro Rd. [right, Sep 2009] in Cleveland Heights. The location was the home of a well-known non-alcoholic financier, Thomas E. Borton. A.A. had sobered up one of his alcoholic employees, and out of gratitude, he offered his home for meetings.
    Clarence S. started the Borton Group after being expelled from the original Cleveland Group—which he also founded, naming it the “Alcoholics Anonymous Group,” after the Big Book title—after only six months. He was removed for secretly inviting Elrick B. Davis, a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to meetings, which sparked an explosion of local interest in A.A. following the publication of Davis’ articles about the organization. Warren C. (A.A. #12) later recalled that the original Cleveland Group met at the home of Albert “Abby” G.

    … was a mixture of Oxford Group plus those who came in new like myself. That was the first group where the Oxford Group people and the A.A.’s [sic] weren't mixed.
    … there were probably half a dozen Akron people who came up to Cleveland—Doc S—– [Dr. Bob], the S—– boys [Paul and Dick], Bill D—– [A.A. #3], and so forth. Not every week, but once in a while. We sort of supported each other in the beginning.

In 1939, Lois W. wrote in her diary:

    Drove to Cleveland [Ohio] for meeting. Tremendous gathering. Clarence [S.], Jack [perhaps Jack D. of New York, one of Bill’s pigeons], and Bill [W.] spoke. Then, Bill and I dashed to a second meeting. Met Mr. Lupton, Unitarian minister who is to give sermon on Nov. 26, and Elrick Davis, who wrote [the Cleveland] Plain Dealer articles.

    Whatever Bill W.’s feelings about the Cleveland split were, he showed no favoritism and attended both meetings.

 

In 1940, late in the evening, Father Ed Dowling [left] unexpectedly arrived at the 24th St. Clubhouse in New York City. He asked for Bill W., and Tom, the caretaker of the clubhouse, informed Bill. Bill then told Tom to bring the unidentified man up to his upstairs bedroom cubbyhole, where Father Ed and Bill met for the first time.
    [This date has long been undetermined. In 1960 Bill described the weather on the night they met as “wild” and “wintry” and says that “hail and sleet beat on the tin roof.” He also described Fr. Ed’s black hat as “plastered with sleet.” By looking at weather records, it appeared that the most reasonable date was 26 Nov 1940. 

    However, when I shared this with Dawn Eden Goldstein, author of Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor, she in turn shared information from the relevant pages from Father Ed’s personal calendar, which she had seen. These pages show that on the 16th, Dowling left Baltimore, Maryland at 4 pm, and arrived in New York City at 8 pm. He left New York City at midnight on the 17th, arriving the morning of the 18th in Springfield, Massachusetts. There he participated in sessions of the Proportional Representation League, which was holding its meetings in conjunction with the National Municipal League’s annual convention. This convention and these meetings began on the 18th as noted in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat of 17 Nov 1940, shown right.]

In 1944, Charles Fletcher Welch [far left], the non-alcoholic founder of Vancouver, British Columbia’s first A.A. group, began running an advertisement [near left] in The Vancouver Daily Province. Similar ads would later be published in The Vancouver Sun and The Vancouver News-Herald into 1952.

In 1950, Dr. Robert “Bob” S., 70, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, died at noon in City Hospital in Akron, Ohio. Just before dying, he serenely remarked to his attendant, “I think this is it.” He was cremated in Cleveland, Ohio, and his remains were interred in Mount Peace Cemetery in Akron, next to those of his wife, Anne [near right: gravestone]. Rev. Walter Tunks [far right] officiated the service.

    During his 15 years of sobriety, Dr. Bob treated more than 5,000 alcoholics, never accepting a fee for his professional services. In his eulogy, Bill W. described Dr. Bob as “the prince of the Twelfth Steppers.”