July 20 in A.A. History

In 1898:	Q. What did the future Dr. Bob S. [faar right] do between his graduation from St. Johnsbury Academy on 24 Jun 1898, and his enrollment at Dartmouth College on 15 Sep 1898?
	A. He worked in the shipping department of E. and T. Fairbanks & Co. at the scale works in St. Johnsbury, Vermont [above near right: clippings from the St Johnsbury Republican (top), The St Johnsbury Caledonian (bottom) on 20 Jul 1898] .

In 1935, in a circular letter, Lois W. [left: PCI graduation, 1912] wrote to three of her oldest friends from Packer Collegiate Institute [right, 1910]: Elise Valentine Shaw1, Edith Roberts2, and Helen Cruden3, to share that…

     …Bill has stopped drinking thru the Oxford Group… Last December Ebby Thatcher [sic] appeared sober for the first time in years and with a very strange story to tell about a religion called the Oxford Group which had cured him just as he was about to be committed to an insane asylum.

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¹Helen Elise Valentine (1890–1976) married Frank Stinson Shaw in 1916. They had three daughters and lived first in Brooklyn, then in Fairfield, Connecticut. Frank was a stockbroker who had worked closely with Lois’s husband Bill in the 1920s while Bill and Lois were investigating companies looking for under-valued stocks.

2Dr. Edith Adelaide Roberts [right] (1881–1977) became an American botanist who studied plant physiology and was a pioneer in plant ecology. She created the first ecological laboratory in the United States, promoted natural landscaping along with Elsa Rehmann, and proved that plants were the main source of vitamin A [from her Wikipedia page].
³Helen Cruden (1892–1992) appears to have married Frederick William Gerhard in 1920. If so, they had three children and lived mostly in or near Washington D.C.

In 1970, in a small room in Deira, Tom L. [left] started the first A.A. meeting in the United Arab Emirates. At 26, he had attended his first A.A. meeting in India, a moment that eventually would forever change his life through the 12 Steps and a new relationship with his higher power. By the late 1960s, alcoholism had stripped him of his job, family, and friends, leaving him homeless on the streets of Mumbai. In 1968, he moved to Abu Dhabi to work as a laborer.