January 6 in A.A. History

In 1941, Bill W. [near right, 1942] responded to a letter from Jack Alexander [far right], who had enclosed a manuscript of his article on Alcoholics Anonymous for The Saturday Evening Post. Bill’s eagerness was evident:

    I wish I could adequately convey to you the sense of gratitude that every one of us feels towards you and the Saturday Post for what is about to take place. You can not possibly conceive the direct alleviation of so much misery as will be brought to an end through your pen and your good publishers. For many a day you will be the toast of A.A.—in Coca-Cola, of course!

In 1955, Bill W.’s stepmother, Christine Bock W., 77, died in Los Angeles, California. She would be buried alongside Bill’s father in the East Dorset Cemetery in Vermont [left: their headstone].

In 2000, Stephen P. [right], 63, died at Washoe Medical Center in Reno, Nevada, after a 6½-year battle with chronic myelogenous leukemia. Together with his wife Frances, he had compiled A Concordance to Alcoholics Anonymous [left], first published in August 1990.
    Under the pseudonym Stephen E. Whitfield, and with minimal contributions from Gene Roddenberry, he wrote the classic book The Making of Star Trek [right], the first—and for many years the only—specialized reference book on the behind-the-scenes aspects of Star Trek production, published in 1968.