May 11 in A.A. History

In 1935, it was Saturday. Bill W. [right], not quite five months sober, stood in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel in Akron, Ohio. Howard Tompkins of Baer and Company had involved Bill in a complicated proxy fight for control of the National Rubber Machinery Company^* in Akron, which, if successful, could have made Bill president and lifted him and Lois out of their dire financial situation. However, the deal fell through, possibly due to rumors of Bill’s drinking. Dejected and distressed, he returned to the Mayflower Hotel where he had been staying.

    In the lobby, Bill found himself powerfully tempted by the lure of the bar. After a few moments of indecision, he suddenly realized that while his work with alcoholics at Towns Hospital had not helped them achieve sobriety, it had helped him remain sober.^† Turning away from the bar, he approached the public phone in the lobby and began calling ministers listed in a church directory by the phone, seeking someone he could work with. He finally reached Rev. Walter Tunks [left], who connected him with a local member of the Oxford Group, Henrietta Seiberling [right].

    Henrietta had recently begun praying for a particular Oxford Group member who was unable to stop drinking. When Bill introduced himself by saying, “I’m from the Oxford Group, and I’m a rum hound from New York,” Henrietta felt her prayer had been  answered, thinking to herself, “This is really like manna from heaven.” She had been praying for someone who could help Dr. Bob S. [left], a surgeon who had been attending her Oxford Group meetings for two and a half years, struggling unsuccessfully to get sober. She told Bill about this doctor. Although she would have invited them both over for dinner, the doctor was already too drunk to meet anyone that night, so Henrietta made plans for the two men to meet the following evening at her home, the Gate Lodge [right] at Stan Hywet, the Seiberling estate.

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^* T. Henry Williams—at whose home the Oxford Group that included Henrietta, the doctor, and the doctor’s wife met—had lost his job as Chief Engineer of the National Rubber Machinery Company in a reorganization earlier that spring.
^† There is no basis for believing that it was Lois who pointed this out, as much as many of us would have wanted it that way.

In 1939, the first group to adopt the name “Alcoholics Anonymous” (after the title of the recently published book) met at the home of Albert “Abby” G. [left], located at 2345 Stillman Rd. in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

    This group would come to be known by various names, including the Cleveland Group, the Stillman Road Group, and the “G” Group. Prior to this meeting, the Cleveland A.A. members had been part of the Akron, Ohio, Oxford Group’s “alcoholic squad,” attending weekly meetings on Wednesdays. During the previous night’s meetin Akron, Clarence S. [right] announced their decision to leave the Akron group and start their own. Clarence later reflected,

    I made the mistake of telling these people the address. They invaded the house and tried to break up our meeting. One fellow was going to whip me. All in the spirit of pure Christian love! But we stood our ground.