October 11 in A.A. History

In 1917, J. Frederick “Fred” Seiberling, Sr. and Henrietta Buckler [right: c. 1917] were married in Akron, Ohio. The couple would have three children but would separate in early 1935, though they would never divorce. Henrietta would move from the huge Manor House of Stan Hywet (pronounced “stan HEE-wit”), the Seiberling estate in Akron, to the much smaller Gate Lodge [below left], located on the edge of the estate.

    Shortly after the Oxford Group came to Akron, in January 1933, Henrietta would become involved with them. In May 1935, she would introduce Bill W. to Dr. Bob S. at her home, playing a crucial role in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. Both Henrietta and Fred would become devoted supporters of A.A.

	In 1937, [12th?] In Akron, Ohio, Bill W., Dr. Bob S., and Bob’s wife Anne [right, respectively] sat in the couple’s living room [left] discussing the two-year-old fellowship they had started. Taking stock of its achievements so far, they counted 35 to 40 people who had sobered up, with more than 20 having maintained sobriety for at least a year. This conversation would come to be known as the “counting noses” meeting.

     In Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, written after the 1955 International Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, and published in 1957, Bill would write:

    It was on a November^* day in that year [1937] when Dr. Bob and I sat in his living room, counting the noses of our recoveries. There had been failures galore, but now we could see some startling successes too. A hard core of very grim last-gasp cases had by then been sober a couple of years, an unheard-of development. There were twenty or more such people. All told we figured that upwards of forty alcoholics were staying bone dry.
    As we carefully rechecked this score, it suddenly burst upon us that a new light was shining into the dark world of the alcoholic. Despite the fact that Ebby had slipped, a benign chain reaction, one alcoholic carrying the good news to the next, had started outward from Dr. Bob and me. Conceivably, it could one day circle the whole world. What a tremendous realization that was! At last we were sure. There would be no more flying totally blind. We actually wept for joy, and Bob and Anne and I bowed our heads in silent thanks.

Bill would also write about this meeting in the October 1945 issue of the A.A. Grapevine,

The realization that we “had found something” began to take hold of us. No longer were we a dubious experiment. Alcoholics could stay sober. Great numbers perhaps! While some of us had always clung to this possibility, the dream now had real substance. If 40 alcoholics could recover, why not four hundred, four thousand—even forty thousand?

And on 12 June 1954, speaking at the Texas State Convention in Fort Worth, Texas, Bill would say:

Bob and I saw for the first time that this thing was going to succeed. That God in his providence and mercy had thrown a new light into the dark caves where we and our kind had been and were still by the millions dwelling. I can never forget the elation and ecstasy that seized us both.

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^*Not only was this date incorrect—despite his repeated assertions over the years that the meeting had taken place in November—but he was also conflating this trip with another one he made in search of work in Detroit, Michigan, and Cleveland, Ohio, which included a visit to Akron by himself.