May 31 in A.A. History

In 1949, Bill W. responded [right] to a May 15th note from Ed W. [far left]. Ed had written to inform Bill that Barry C. [near left], a founder of A.A. in Minnesota, was doing much better.

     He also asked Bill to confirm that he had received the copies of The Little Red Book [right] that Ed had sent. As the primary author, Ed wanted the Alcoholic Foundation to take over its publication. Dr. Bob S. had contributed to the book, and Bill had praised it, but A.A.W.S. would not publish it because the Trustees preferred an A.A.-owned book.
    Bill wrote:

    I did receive those books.… Lois and I continue to reminisce about our pleasant visit with your group. God forbid that Alcoholics Anonymous ever become frozen or rigid in its ways of doing or thinking. Within the framework of our principles the ways are apparently legion. There is little doubt that the contributions you folks have made to our progress will always be a part of the folk lore [sic] of our well-loved fellowship.

In 1963, the Kodiak (Alaska) Mirror featured an article on page 5 titled “Local Alcoholics Anonymous Group Hears Report” [left] . It told of a representative—likely from Kodiak’s only A.A. group, the Isle of Hope Group—who attended the Alaska State A.A. Assembly in Anchorage. This representative delivered a report to local members, which included the following details:

    Methods of furthering AA’s efforts to help the alcoholic who still suffers from this disabling disease were discussed and a report was heard from Alaska’s delegate to the headquarters of Alcoholics Anonymous in New York City where the annual conference of delegates from the entire United States and the Provinces of Canada was held on April 15.

May 30 in A.A. History

In 1941, in Hartford, Connecticut [right, in early 1945] the two founding members of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) had their last drinks without having met or known of each other until shortly afterward.
    Hal S., from the Shaker Heights Group in Ohio, was in Hartford on business when he asked a doctor if he knew any drunks. The doctor did not, but his nurse provided Hal with the name of Harold “Red” W. Hal called Red that evening, but Red was “indisposed.” They eventually met a few days later, and Red had his last drink on May 30.

    Meanwhile, Harold H., a salesman and periodic drunk, had read Jack Alexander’s article in The Saturday Evening Post [left: cover] but was put off by the “God business” and resigned himself to remaining a drunk. Shortly after, he found himself in a hospital after being beaten up and arrested. Upon his release, he attended a party on May 30, where he encountered an old drinking buddy, Brad P., who had sobered up in the Scarsdale Group in New York. He asked Harold if he wanted to die as an alcoholic. Having witnessed a man suffer from delirium tremens (the DTs), Harold said no and never drank again.
    Not long after, Harold and Red met and began recruiting other drunks.

In 1944, in Georgia, The Atlanta Constitution published an article [right] titled “‘Bill’ [W.] Defines Alcoholic as ‘Bankrupt Idealist.’” This demonstrates that Bill used the term “bankrupt idealist” eight years before it appeared in his Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (Tradition 6, page 156).

1964, Ebby T. arrived at McPike’s Farm [left], an innovative alcoholism treatment facility located in Galway, New York, near Saratoga Springs. Founded by Margaret and Mickey M. in the winter of 1958, the farm offered Ebby a chance to find some peace and alleviate the inner turmoil that had plagued him for much of his life. Sadly, less than two years later, he would die in a nearby hospital.

May 29 in A.A. History

In 1921, The Boston Globe (Massachusetts) published Dr. Frank Crane’s piece titled “Just for Today” [left], which has since been widely circulated in A.A. and Al-Anon. Dr. Crane [right] himself later remarked, “Bill [W.] did say we ‘borrowed.’ This time from Dr. Crane’s 1921 copyrighted material.”

In 1944, The Patriot (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) published a column by Beatrix Fairfax, titled “Advice to the Lovelorn: ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ Helps Make Homes Happy” [left], a column Fairfax is described as a “Famous Authority on Problems of Love and Marriage.”

In 1980, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers [right: 1st edition, 1st printing], an authorized biography of A.A.’s co-founder and a history of early A.A. in the Midwest, was published. Niles P. was hired to write it, apparently with assistance from Barry L.; Ed N. and Ruth Hock may have also contributed.

In 2022, Elizabeth “Liz” B. [left] of Boston, Massachusetts, 100, died after 69 years and 11 months of sobriety. Originally from New York City, she was a friend of Bill W. and spoke at his 26th anniversary celebration.

May 28 in A.A. History

In 1907, Conor F. [right] was probably born in County Roscommon, Ireland. He would immigrate to the United States and get sober in 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1946, he and Richard P. would found the first Alcoholics Anonymous group in Dublin, also the first A.A. group in Europe.

In 1974, the A.A. Fellowship in Great Britain was chosen to host the 3rd biennial A.A. World Service Meeting, making it the first time this event would be held outside the United States. A Site Committee, composed of members selected at the 2nd World Service Meeting, recommended England as the top choice for the 1974 gathering, “with Mexico or Finland as second and third choices,” respectively. The meeting was scheduled for 16–18 October 1974, at the Gloucester Hotel in London.

May 27 in A.A. History

In 1917, Nellie “Nell” Wing [right, c. 1946] was born in Kendall, New York, the daughter of William Frank and Daisy Shepard Wing.
    A non-alcoholic, she would serve as Bill W.’s secretary and administrative assistant at the Alcoholic Foundation/General Service Office in New York City from March 1947 until Bill’s death in 1971. In addition, she was A.A.’s first official Archivist from early 1972 until her retirement in December 1982.

In 1961, James “J.D.” Holmes, A.A. #8, died from “coronary insufficiency” at his home at 657 Elma Street [left, in Jun 2011] in Akron, Ohio, at the age of 66. He had gotten sober in Akron in September 1936.

Other significant events in May, day unknown

In 1923, Lois W., Bill’s wife [right: Bill and Lois on their Harley-Davidson, c. mid-1920s], suffered a third ectopic pregnancy, a condition in which the fertilized egg develops outside the uterus; her first two occurred in June and July 1922. In her memoir, Lois Remembers, she wrote:

    In May 1923 the improbably happened—a third ectopic. I was tutoring a young girl in Latin when I felt the first symptoms. After another operation I made a quick recovery. By then both tubes and the complete cystic ovary had been removed. A small portion of the other ovary was kept so that I might retain my feminine characteristics, it was said. Bill was often too drunk, for days at a time, to come to see me in the hospital.
    We had both deeply desired a family. But after my second ectopic, Bill and I knew positively that we could never have children. My tubes had apparently been closed since birth. Bill, even when drunk, took this overwhelming disappointment with grace and with kindness to me. But his drinking had been increasing steadily. It seemed that after all hope of having children had died, his bouts with alcohol had become even more frequent.
    I knew I had done nothing to prevent our having children; yet somehow I could not help feeling guilty. So how could I blame him for the increase in his drinking?
    This kind of thinking made me try harder to understand him and to be tolerant when he was drunk. But there were many times when I lost my temper. He never hit me, but I hit him. I remember with shame on time toward the end of his drinking, when I was so angry as he lay drunk on the bed that I beat his chest with both my firsts as hard as I could.

In 1932, Bill W., who had been sober for five weeks, and several engineers traveled to Bound Brook, New Jersey, to investigate a new photographic process at Pathé Laboratories [left]. Bill was the managing partner of a stock-buying syndicate, which he had formed with Arthur Wheeler and Frank Winans in April. His partnership agreement specified that if he drank, he would forfeit the full value of his share, including his original investment.

    After dinner, the engineers started a poker game and invited Bill to join them, but he declined. A jug of applejack called Jersey Lightning [right] appeared, and Bill also refused their repeated offers of a drink. By midnight, he found himself reminiscing about his drinking career: the Bronx cocktail that had been his first, the brandies he had on the ship to Europe during World War I, and the French wines. It became a game to list his drinking history and wonder what he hadn’t tasted. When the engineers offered him a drink once more, it occurred to him that he had never tried Jersey Lightning. He thought, “Why not? What harm could one taste do?”
    He was drunk for three days, and when his partners heard the story, he forfeited his entire interest in the syndicate.

May 25 in A.A. History

In 1925, Bill and Lois W. were 5½ weeks into their motorcycle trip investigating publicly held companies across the eastern U.S. At what the Burnham family called “The Camp,” located at Lake Emerald outside East Dorset, Vermont, Lois’s entry in her Diary of Two Motorcycle Hobos described how “Two tragedies occurred in the insect and bird life today.” With “astonishment,” she watched a dragonfly emerge “from the ugly brown beetle shell” she had found. As it flew away, a phoebe bird “darted down and gobbled it up!” Lois “sat down and cried. Later [that] afternoon one of the babies of the same phoebe bird fell out of the nest and was killed instantly” [right: phoebe eating a dragonfly]
.

In 1962, the three-day Central New York Area Conference [left: commemorative coin] began at the Watson Homestead Conference and Retreat Center [right] in Painted Post, New York.

In 1989, the four-day 32nd International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (ICYPAA) opened at the Salt Lake City Marriott and Salt Palace [left: aerial view of Salt Palace (left) and Marriott (right)] in Utah, drawing an attendance of 4,000. The theme of the conference was “Carry the Message.”