May 11 in A.A. History

1935: It was Saturday. Bill W. [right], less than 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 complex proxy fight for control of the National Rubber Machinery Company^* in Akron. A successful outcome could have made Bill president, lifting 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.
    In the lobby, Bill felt a powerful pull towards the hotel bar. After a brief internal struggle, a sudden realization struck him: his work with alcoholics at Towns Hospital, though unsuccessful for them, had ironically been instrumental in maintaining his own sobriety.^† Turning away from the bar, he found a public telephone and began calling ministers from a nearby church directory, seeking someone he could work with. He finally reached Rev. Walter Tunks [left], who connected him with Dr. Norman Arthur Shepard, a local member of the Oxford Group. Shepard, in turn, provided the phone number for another member, Henrietta Seiberling [right].
    Henrietta had recently been praying for a particular Oxford Group member who struggled with alcohol. When Bill introduced himself, declaring, “I’m from the Oxford Group, and I’m a rum hound from New York,” Henrietta felt her prayer answered, thinking, “This is really like manna from heaven.” She had been praying for someone to help Dr. Robert “Bob” S. [left], a surgeon who, despite attending her Oxford Group meetings for two and a half years, had been unable to get sober. She told Bill about the doctor. Though she would have invited them both for dinner, the doctor was too drunk to meet anyone that night. Henrietta instead 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.

1939: Inspired by the recently published book Alcoholics Anonymous, the first group to adopt that name convened at Albert “Abby” Golrick’s home at 2345 Stillman Road in Cleveland, Ohio [left]. This pioneering group would later be known by several names, including the Cleveland Group, the Stillman Road Group, and the “G” Group.
    Before forming their own fellowship, these Cleveland A.A. members had been part of the Akron, Ohio Oxford Group’s “alcoholic squad,” attending weekly Wednesday meetings. The night before their inaugural meeting, Clarence S. [right] had announced their decision to leave the Akron group and establish an independent one. Clarence later reflected on the Akron group's reaction:

    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.