September 2 in A.A. History

1977: The three-day 20th International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (ICYPAA) began at the Shamrock Hilton [back­ground image] in Houston, Texas. The theme of the conference was “Sharing Everyone’s Recovery” [left: flyer/registration form; right: con­ference memorabilia].

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1905: While living at 42 Chestnut Ave. [left, recent] in Rutland, Vermont, 9-year-old Bill W.’s father, Gilman, took him for a late night buggy ride [right: AI-generated portrayal] after a bitter argument with his wife, Emily. As Bill later recalled, his father said to him, “You’ll take care of her, won’t you, Billy? You’ll be good to your mother and to little Dotty [his sister, Dorothy] too.” Then he answered his own question, “Sure you will. Sure. You’re okay, Billy.” And as his father raised a jug to his lips and took a long, slow drink, Bill knew that the explanation he was waiting for would not be given.

The next morning, Dorothy told him that their father had left them. Until that point, Bill’s mother had been away from home for extended periods. Gilman went to western Canada and Bill did not see him again for nine years. Emily sent word to her father, Fayette Griffith in East Dorset, Vermont, to come to Rutland and pick up Bill and Dorothy [left: c. 1905]. Emily stayed in Rutland for a while to make arrangements.

1912: Entering his senior year at Burr and Burton Seminary [right] in Manchester, Vermont, Bill W. was the class president, a star football player, the pitcher and captain of the baseball team, and the first violinist in the school orchestra.

1923: Bill W returned to Brooklyn Law School [left: Brooklyn Eagle Building, which housed the law school, 1923]. All of his classes were third-year courses, except for Equity, a second-year course he had failed in February. When he retook the course, he passed.

1927: [October?] On their way home from Havana, Cuba, where Bill and Lois W. had gone to investigate the predominantly U.S.-owned sugar in­dustry, they stopped in Miami Beach, Florida, to visit Bill’s father, Gilman, and his second wife, Bill’s stepmother, Christine. During this visit, Bill met his half-sister, Helen [right, 1931], born in 1916, for the first time.

1935: Bill W. began working with Hank P. [left] who was from Teaneck, New Jersey. Hank would become Bill’s first or second 12th-step success in New York City, the other being Fitz M. This event marks the beginning of A.A. in New Jersey.

1936: Bill W. returned to Akron. He wrote, likely to Lois, that his arrival was 

… a signal for a house party, which was very touching. Anne and Bob [S.] and Henrietta Seiberling [right, respectively] have done a great job. There were several new faces since spring.

1936: James Dellie “J.D.” H. [left] got sober and became A.A. #10 [though other sources say he was #8 or #17]. A native of Graves County, Kentucky, J.D. was a newspaper writer living in Akron, Ohio, and was nicknamed “Abercrombie” by Dr. Bob S. for reasons J.D. never understood. He later recalled being taken care of by “nine or ten who preceded me.” He remembers meeting Dr. Bob and hearing his…

… screwball idea about the drink problem. He was a Vermonter and I was a Southerner, and to me, he had the professional Northern type of attitude—gruff and blunt. But later, after he told me his story, I knew it was just his manner of speaking.

There is evidence that J.D. slipped a few months into sobriety but returned to A.A. after approximately four months. He would go on to establish Indiana’s first A.A. group in Evansville on 23 April 1940, which became known as the Tri-State Group. Subsequently, with Doherty “Dohr” S. [right, 1953], he would help spread A.A. throughout the state.