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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Hi, my name is Gail L and I'm an alcoholic >> and um my sobriety dates May 13th of 1978. I have a home group.

I've got a sponsor and I sponsor. Um, I just want to thank everybody once again for the wonderful time I'm having here in Stockholm and for all the people that are in service to me. I feel like the queen or something.

I don't know. Um, and every now and then there's the changing of the guards. You know, somebody comes to walk me or throw me on the the metro or whatever.

So, um, but we're doing it sometimes one hour at a time, but we're getting there. So, here we are again. And I'm starting to feel very comfortable.

I'm starting to feel like this might be my home group. I've showed up here now a couple times. I'm going keep coming back.

Um, some of you were here last night, some of you are new tonight, so there may be some repetition for those of you who were here last night, but it helps to carry the story along. So, bear with me if it's um some of the slides are similar to last night. Uh, we're going to talk about something that doesn't get brought out too much because when AA was being born, um, women, you know, really weren't very prominent.

you know, you if you invented something, you couldn't get a patent and women kind of stayed in the background. So, we want to bring them out a little bit tonight so we can study the history of women in AA. Um, another title that I thought of using, you've heard of Dr.

Bob and the good old-timers. Well, I thought I'd call this talk Dr. Bob and the good old gals.

Dr. Bob called women frails, so I thought we could call it Tales of the Frails. And a lot of time we call it history.

Well, we could call it her story or her story. And here comes Dr. Bob now trailing behind these wonderful nurses here.

There he is on the right as a handsome young doctor. Believe me, I've studied these slides a lot and sometimes I start to swoon just a little bit. Back to Akran a little bit.

want to just take you back to the start of this thing which you know started um in the mid30s. We talked last night about Jim Newton and how he helped Russell Bud Firestone get sober by introducing him to the Oxford group and that's how um God prepared the soil in Akran for the birth of AA. You can just see how God went before with this Oxford group.

And um but Jim Newton later ended up in Fort Meyers and he and his wife Ellie who I'm going to be getting a picture of but I don't have her right now. Her name is Eleanor Ford. uh because they didn't have conference approved literature.

She had written a beautiful pamphlet on guidance that they read and both of them I think she lived to almost be a hundred and they practiced MRA um up until the end and there's a new um foundation um he wrote a book called uncommon friends about his friends and um there's a new foundation that just started for both of them. There's Harvey Firestone who was so grateful for his son's recovery. And I mentioned last night, those of you that are familiar with the prodal son, um the father is so grateful with the son's recovery.

His son has returned home. He's no longer beating the wife. He doesn't even look the same after making the surrender on the train with Sam Shoemaker.

um that he throws a party in the newly opened Mayflower Hotel inviting Frank Bman who was the founder of the Oxford group and by the way I know that there's a lot of history here of Lutheran so you might want to know this was a Lutheran minister and you're going to have a hard time believing this but this guy had resentments and while he was in a church in Kzich England he had a spiritual experience and he came back and he started the movement that was once known as a return to first century Christianity. Today the headquarters is in co Switzerland and they've changed their name to initiatives of change but they actually are still around doing some good work by the way. Uh the fir that we're talking about women so we want to talk about Henrietta Cyberling who's on the left and Anne Smith who first got involved in the Oxford group.

If it hadn't been for them probably Dr. Bob would have never joined the Oxford group. um these women manipulated him a lot and um uh kind of got to had their way with him and he ended up coming into the Oxford group.

Um this is Dr. Bob and behind him was Anne Smith. Now she was a lady in waiting.

Dr. Bob courted her for 17 years. You might say he was a little slow.

Um, we don't know why they waited so long to marry, but um, it was a very long courtship and she was a school teacher and um, there she is as a darling young girl. Isn't that a sweet picture? You know, some people don't have to work as hard as us alcoholics to get sweet.

She was already sweet. And um, you can see that there. And here's another picture of the couple.

Um the woman on the right is Deline Weber. I mentioned last night that there was a woman who called Henrietta Cyberling and >> >> um spoke to her because Ann and Bob weren't sharing at the Oxford group meetings. Dr.

Bob had been in the Oxford group for two and a half years. Um for those of you that weren't here last night, he had been reading the Bible. Oxford group had a lot of books.

They read a lot of books and Dr. Bob was quite a reader and he read a lot of books and um he went back to church, something he swore he would never do. He wanted to get sober so bad that he would do everything that they told him to do.

But he could not get sober. In fact, he told Henrietta once, you know, maybe I'm just a wannabe. You know how hard it is when we can't get sober and we keep failing and we keep failing.

So, it was Deline who tipped Henrietta off. Henrietta went into her quiet time. For those of you who may not have heard of that or morning guidance, it probably has a lot to do with why we have an 11th step in our program today.

They used to consider the morning quiet time maybe more important than meetings. Um, and what that consisted of was getting up in the morning and opening your Bible or something that you were reading that was inspirational. And after you were finished, you would stop and you would get out a pencil and a paper and you would listen and you would put down what you thought God was saying to you.

The next thing you did was something called checking. You would call someone and run it by the four absolutes to see if it passed that test or if it was coming from your ego. Now, you might find this surprising, but the alcoholics didn't like checking too much.

But I will tell you this that because of the guidance I believe that's how the program got formed that God was able to speak to people that it's such a miraculous program. We talked about all the slender threads and coincidences and serendipity that's in the program. I think that comes because they were actually listening trying to do God's will.

Um so she asked what are we going to do about Dr. Bob? And you know that it was Henrietta who through her guidance got a hold of these two people T.

Henry and ClariS Williams and they held the meeting on Monday that was a setup meeting and she said come prepared to mean business. There'll be no footing around and um that's where we get that word leader for leading a meeting and Wednesday they had that meeting and we know that it was successful intervention that Dr. Bob thanked them and at the risk of his profession um he said to uh them that he was a secret drinker and could not stop.

And that was the beginning of Bob and Anne sharing. Um and they got down on their knees and they said a prayer for him. And then I I mentioned to you that this they would continue to meet in that home.

But what I forgot to tell you is that group number one, the alcoholic squad that would start there would move out after the big book is published. The big book will be published in April of 1939. We just celebrated 70 years.

In May, Cleveland will break away. And uh the gentleman will start it will be Clarence Snyder and he'll be the first one to call it AA. Now, he liked to be considered the founder of AA because he was the first one to take the name from the book.

There a lot of controversy around old Clarence. Yeah, really. But I want you to kind of know that the prayer that was said here on Wednesday at 8:00 that that meeting is still meeting because that meeting moved out at the end of the year and moved into Dr.

Bob's home and then by January of 1940 it became uh King School. It's in your big book and that is the mother group and all groups came from that group. So you might want to consider the prayer that was said that that um uh all groups can trace their group back to that prayer.

Now that's the living room where they met and I told you that Dr. Bob uh got the surreners. Bill couldn't sober anybody up but Dr.

Bob was the prince of 12 steppers. Now Henrietta after that intervention began to pray for Dr. Bob every morning.

And in her guidance she said this is what she says to God. But I told she said but I told Bob that I was sure if he lived this way of life he could quit drinking. Now I need your help God.

This is what God says to Henrietta. Bob must not touch one drop of alcohol. So she calls Bob up and she and well she talked to Anne first and she goes, "Anne, Anne, I've got guidance for Bob.

I got guidance for Bob." Oh, Bob gets in his car and he races down to the gate lodge. It wasn't too far. Can you imagine his disappointment when she said to him, "Don't touch." He really was disappointed.

He kind of thought maybe a mountain would move or something. I don't know. But she continued to pray.

And it's through her prayer that those two men got together. It's through her prayer that when Bill comes uh a proper lady, a lady who was very raised uh and high society and a cyberling that was like our royalty and she's going to get a call from this bum, a total stranger that says, "I'm a rum hound from New York." How many of us would say, "Yeah, come on over." But she thinks mana from heaven. She knows that's the answer to her prayer.

I mean such faith. She had tremendous faith in God and his guidance. So behind Bill we have Lois.

How many of you have seen The Pray? Have anybody seen the play that was off Broadway called Bob and Bill where the story actually gets acted out in drama? You've seen it.

You can feel what these women went through from that play. It's different than reading it. Um I remember seeing it a couple times and I want just wanted those women to lead those guys.

you know, why are you taking so much from these birds? But uh and she certainly did. Um some of you might know that she tried to get Bill to sober up by um uh taking him out into these motorcycle rides where they went around the country.

And a lot of people think that, you know, they had that Harley with the sidec car and they thought Bill drove it. Mm- Lois drove it. Bill was in the side car.

You know, I don't think if it was for Lois and Anne, those guys would have made it. I really don't think they they would have ever gotten to the point where God could have helped sober them up. Um, I want to read to you.

Well, I'm going to take this so I can read because I can't read it from this far. Um, this is out of the family Bible of Bill's family Bible. And, um, those of you that have made pledges to get sober to your loved ones might relate to this cuz I'll read the dates.

To my beloved wife that has endured so much, let this stand as evidence of my pledge to you that I have finished with drink forever. Bill, October 20th, 1928. Thanksgiving Day, 1928.

My strength is renewed a thousandfold in my love for you. One more to tell you once more that I am finished with it. I love you.

January 12th, 1929. Finally, and for a lifetime. Thank God for your love.

September 3rd, 1930. I've seen many an alcoholic shed a tear when they read that because I think many of us can relate to those broken promises. We meant well, didn't we?

>> >> Um, so when Bill gets sober, he's in town's hospital and he's had this spiritual experience and he sees how his experience can benefit others. And the next thing Bill wants to do is save the world. He's going to become a missionary.

And he begins running around town's hospital and Oxford group looking for a drunk cuz he's going to pass this on. And what does he do? He brings them home to Lois.

She's the one working. They don't char They fill that house for the next six months is full of drunks. Lois is cooking.

Lois is working. None of the drunks are paying. They didn't charge him anything.

And Bill's being a missionary. Um so you can imagine um what that was like. But when Bill gets depressed because he couldn't sober up anybody.

In fact, you know, in the day that we're talking about back in the 30s and the ' 40s, a woman's place was in the home. She was in charge of the home and Lois gave permission for all those drunks to come into her home. One of them, I mean, there was a lot of stories.

I think one was running around naked one time and um another time they were out of town and this guy sold all their clothes and they came home and he had gassed himself in the house. Now, most women wouldn't put up with that. Um, but Lois stood by her husband.

Um, after this, Lois is going to say something to Bill cuz he's going to get kind of depressed. People are killing themselves. Nobody's getting sober.

He's working and uh trying to get him sober and uh you know, he's sitting in a chair kind of got the blues. And Lois said, "But you're sober, Bill." It was Lois that told Bill that. Thank God because he's going to need that.

He's going to come to Akran by train and he's going to take over this National Rubber Machinery shop. That's what's left of it. And um he's going to find himself in the Mayflower lobby.

Uh he's going to hear the tinkling of the glasses and because of what Lois said to him, he's going to go to that directory and instead of going into the bar, he's going to try to find another alcoholic. He's going to pick Reverend Tungst's name. That's Reverend Tungst's home.

The call is going to come in to the left of the door. I've been in the home. There's a little kind of phone right on the inside.

It's a rainy Mother's Day weekend. When he gets the call, he's going to give um 10 names to Bill. Bill's going to call all those people.

Nobody is willing to help Bill until somebody finally gives him Henrietta's number. And we know that Henrietta has been praying for him. Now, last night I mentioned that he walks away when the voice says to him, "You better call that lady." He doesn't want to call her because look where he thinks she's living.

That's the house behind the gate lodge. Uh you have your palaces here and uh your kingdom. And this was the Cyberling uh estate.

And right at the gate there is the little gate lodge. Very tiny little house. kind of a humble little place for a birth of aa.

I think God had might have had something to do with that. She's separated from her husband and um she's living in this house and he doesn't know that. So, thank God he did call her and rather than say, "I'm not talking to strangers.

Click. I'm a cyberling." She thinks, "Mana from heaven, you come over here right now." Cuz she'd been praying for Dr. Bob every day.

And um Bill does come over. You know, Bob doesn't make it. Then I think uh you mentioned about Dr.

Bob and I think there was something that you compared to because Bill doesn't want to talk to Bob. He wants to give him 15 minutes and um you know that they settle back in the library which is that little gable there and um they go late into the night and Bill is not going to leave Akran. He he's um the Henrietta once again is um oh by the way since we're talking about women uh I think it's important to remember that God chose the day Mother's Day to bring these two men together.

What a greater gift could he give us than on Mother's Day to have the uh spark struck at the gate lodge that would eventually become a one drunk talking to another drunk to stay sober. Henrietta will then put Bill up. Now I don't know how this happened.

This is our Portage Country Club. Okay. This is the finest country club in Akran.

I've only been there one time for a sweet 16 party. How does Bill end up with $10 to his name at the lobby of the Mayflower and the next day end up at the Portage Country Club? This is Bill, right?

You know, one minute he's down and out, the next minute he's in Rockefeller's office. Now he's at the Mayflower, his whole deal falls through, he doesn't have a dime to his name, and now he ends up at the Portage Country Club. I put him on the golf course because I think he'd like to golf quite a bit.

He'll be there two weeks and then Anne Smith will open the Smith home again. Once again, remember that it was women's domain, the home. She wants her husband to get sober.

So, they're going to invite Bill into the home. Uh here's another picture of Henrietta. I've been able to go to the U estate and they've given me some pictures that most people, they're not in print, a lot of these.

Here she is. She had her baby John in the tower. He later became a congressman.

It's a beautiful woman. A little society clip there. A little thing on the gardens.

Um Henrietta Henrietta was kind of um a tough lady. Um I think she actually was the first terrorist when her husband was messing around. She scared the Cyberling family half to death.

I've read a couple letters where they were so scared that she was going to take the children and go back to Texas and they don't know what to do. They thought that there was this dark cloud hanging over the castle there, you know, and I thought, God, Henrietta, she was something else. She wasn't she wasn't uh one to keep her mouth shut.

So, I want you to hear something she said when uh we were trying to tone down the God thing a little bit in AA, you know, there's a little controversy about talking about too much about God. Listen to what she had to say. Oh, come on, Henrietta.

Let me get her back. She's a little shy today. Here we go.

I have to use the mouse to do it. All right. >> We're not out to please the alcoholics.

They've been pleasing themselves all these years. We are out to please God. And if you don't uh talk about what God does and your faith and your guidance, you might as well be the Rotary Club or something because that's your only source of power.

And oh, okay. So, you can see that um when she later moves to New York, by the way, when we separate from the Oxford group, Henrietta comes with us. One of the things I want you to know about the women is that they were part of AA.

The wives were part of AA. Henrietta wasn't an alcoholic, but in the very early days, she was a part of AA too. There wasn't a separation at all.

In fact, uh, Dr. Bob felt that families had been separated too long. He wanted them all together.

Um, here she's returned to the gate lodge after moving to New York. When she moves to New York, this is a later picture of her. She's going to chase Bill around with the Bible.

She doesn't give Bill a break because, you know, there was more agnostics in New York and and and in Akran, we were pretty, you know, we were pretty Bible oriented, but in New York, there was these agnostics. So, Bill got caught up in between and she just she really hounded that guy. You're probably familiar with this quote.

Um, our co-founders believe that for some reason we alcoholics seem to have the gift of picking out the world's finest women. Uh, girls, you might want to remind your boyfriends of that or your husbands. Um, I think it's true.

So, um, Ann's going to invite um, Bill to stay. I Lois wasn't if you in the play, it shows that Lois got a little agitated at this. her husband never came home and um they began sitting around the the tables and uh talking this program up.

Uh a lot of times I think it was the kitchen. Um in some of the old pamphlets in AA they called the um kitchen the AA church. And here are the Smith children in the living room of the home.

Uh Dr. Bob had um and Anne had two children. Sue was adopted so they were both the same age.

And that's Smitty and Sue. Sue lived in Akran and Smitty lived in Texas. And here they are sitting between the Bible.

Now Anne would get up in the morning. It would be Bill that would put on the coffee early in the morning. And Anne would read the Bible to the new people.

She called it spiritual pablum. She read from the book of James. And she'd usually conclude with faith without works is dead or God is love.

So um she kind of sponsored the guys, you know. Um, and here's the Smith kids. They posed because they were always fighting.

They didn't get along at all. And that's a whole another story, but that was kind of a cute picture. Now, I told you about Lois giving up her home and having someone come home and have your clothes uh gone and and and a dead body in your house and that would be awful.

Let me tell you what happened to Anne. I mean, these are kind of heroic women in my mind. They the first guy before Bill D, the first guy they pulled in was Eddie R.

And Eddie R was kind of a nutcase. In fact, he u one time slid down the drain pipe and was going to throw himself in Lake Erie and Bob and Anne had to go get him. And another time his wife disclosed her discretions to him like you were supposed to do in the Oxford group and he beat her up and that's where we get when to do so would injure them or others.

Well, this particular time, Anne was feeding him a tuna fish sandwich and he went nuts and he started chasing her around all the way upstairs with the butcher knife and Bill came in just in the nick of time and took that knife um from him. So, you can see that, you know, I don't know if I would like that too much. So, that was Oh, by the way, Eddie R, they let him go cuz we learned you don't wet nurse a drunk.

Eddie R will show up at Dr. Bob's funeral 1950 with almost a year of sobriety. He died with 17 years.

I love those stories. Little happy ending there for Eddie. Well, they let Eddie go and they go and get Bill D.

Well, behind Bill D is a great lady. Her name's Henrietta. Another Henrietta.

Now, she had been praying for her husband and she had fired their minister because he wasn't helping him. This is a great guy when he was uh sober. He was a great guy.

When he drank, he was crazy. And u this is the guy that um you know, she said, "If you you know, you're not reaching him, I'm going to find someone who can if I have to see everyone in Akran." And she prayed with the pastor of another church that someone her husband could understand would visit him in City Hospital. Well, Dr.

Bob was working at City Hospital and he had sobered up and he hadn't been sober hardly at all. And he called and the nurse answered and he said, "This is Dr. Bob and I found a cure for alcoholism and the nurse said, "Well, Bob, have you tried it on yourself?" They had this guy strapped to the bed and um but one of the things they did in the early days, this is before Alanon and before we were organized, they seemed to intuitively know that you go to the wife first.

So, they went to Henrietta first. And Dr. Bob said, "The little lady at home would like to see you." So she walks up to the Dr.

Smith and she knocks on the door and Anne opens the door and she said, "Hello, Mrs. Smith." And Anne said, "It's Anne to you, my dear." And that made all the difference to her that Anne was so humble and and informal. And then she mentioned to Henrietta, "Let's just you and me stay in the background." So, one of the things that Anne Smith did was every morning she would call Henrietta to check and see what her guidance was.

Um, and and Anne would do that with a lot of people. Um, by the way, Henrietta was the first woman to take AA into a treatment center. She worked at a woman's correctional house and there was a nurse in there that was having trouble with alcoholism.

So, she was the first one to take that in. And here we have the famous man on the bed. But, you know, for a very long time, I always thought we should have the woman on the bed.

So, here you go. I don't know if you recognize her or not, but I I was kind of smiling. I mean, how would you feel if you were being 12step by Bob and Bill?

Actually, there was a movie being done and they used uh the bedroom in my home because it looked just like it. The director saw it and so the actor I said, "I'll let you use the bedroom for the scene for the movie, but you've got to let me put on that wife beater shirt and pose for that. But I just I'm going to have to Photoshop that smile cuz it just doesn't look like I'm bottomed yet." Now, I will tell you, do you have 13 steps here?

No, you don't have them in Sweden, do you? Well, let me tell you about the first 13th step. A gal came in by the name of Lil.

She was the first woman to come in and uh she started to do the this is Dr. Bob's office in Akran and uh she was up there in his office with a former mayor and they were doing the wild thing on Dr. to Bob's operating table and it was time to go home and they couldn't get her to go home and um they sent the fourth man in, Ernie G, to get her and uh when he came up she ran and got some pills out of Dr.

Bob's cabinet, swallowed him and then tried to jump out the window. They rescued her and they took her back to Dr. Bob's house and um they cleaned her up and called her family.

But gals, she set us back quite a bit because after that, Dr. Bob didn't want to work with women. It was kind of a scandal that all that happened.

And um so he was he was finished working with women at that time. Um we call Anne Smith the mother of AA. Um she really was she was one of the kindest women.

She never forgot anyone's name. if she saw you needed if you know this is depression times she'd sew collars on coats so people could wear them in the winter or she'd take them off in the summer. She would go around to everybody that was new make sure she greeted them somewhat what like we do today and she would always even when she went blind later on she would always remember the people and ask questions about them.

Um a very very special woman and she does deserve the title mother of AA. Um, in fact, she'd say, "Do you guys say keep coming back?" Because I think that comes from Anne Smith. Um, there's the replica coffee pot or the original is at Brown University, but that is a replica there in the window.

One of her favorite books was Kagawa. Um, the law of love and then there's a her journal um she um kept a journal and that's been reproduced as well. It's beautiful.

Um, and also I'll tell you a little bit. Do we have any Methodists here? Um, if you know of a Methodist, um, there's a little book that came out and you'll see that book there.

It comes out coincidentally in the spring of 1935 and that becomes our first meditation book. It's called The Upper Room. Oh, let me go back for just a minute.

This isn't particularly a profound u sound bite, but it's the only one we have of Anne Smith. And if you'd like to hear her voice, I'll play it for you. It's a It was taken off a wire recording last night.

You saw a video of her. Um she'll refer to that in this sound bite, but you'll actually hear uh the voice of Anne Smith. No, you won't.

Wait a minute. Come on. Technology.

Here we go. >> Robert wants me to start first. He's afraid.

So, we've got Betty and Smitty here with us and and George Hood. We're all up in my bedroom where we entertain now. Very formal entertaining as you can imagine.

Was very nice of you to invite both Bob and myself down to Bedford Hills and we'd love to come, but at present we I imagine we're will have to stay put at 855 Armore. This is a new experience for me. I had a moving picture taken of myself and now I'm recording.

So you see even with a bum eye, I'm still alive and kicking. Here's the Robert. >> That was to Bill and Lois.

They were um both couples traveled back and forth to visit one another. They were pretty close. That's kind of sweet.

Well, one more thing the Smiths did. You see, as the c word of the cure got out, people started coming to Akran. I know some of you might have seen the movie My Name is Bill W.

I was a little disappointed in that movie cuz about 15 minutes before the movie's over with, Bill's not even sober yet. I was freaking when I saw it the first time. I'm going cuz I knew what happened in Akran.

They didn't come close to telling the story. Not only did you know Anne Smith of course opened her home and um Archie Tobbridge came and he stayed with the Smiths uh in November of 1938. His story is in the first edition.

It was called the fearful one. Later became known as the man who mastered fear and um he was so sickly. And now they didn't have hardly enough food to go around in the family at all.

But they took him in and they cared for him for one year and he um stated this that I've been taken off the streets and nurtured back to health by the love of Anne Smith. Um and then he went back and he started AA in Detroit. Now this was pretty common.

There were other families that opened their homes. People would come in and they would get sober. The women um would care for them.

They would teach them how to meditate and and work this program and then they would go back and start AA in their city. That's how Earl Treat started AA in Chicago and um was pretty common. Now the fourth man in after Bill D was Ernie G.

There's two Ernie G's but this is number four Ernie G. And um he would end up marrying Dr. Bob's daughter and it's a great story because she wanted to marry Ray Windows who she had a oh if you read um Children of the Healer a book that the Smith children wrote she was always running away from Bob and Anne who didn't like Ry didn't want her to marry him so she was always sneaking around so she lost a lot of history running away from what was going on in the house um and so Dr.

Bob intervened. Uh, this is pre-allinon. And he gave Ernie some money to take her out and have a hamburger.

Well, he was sorry about that later cuz they hooked up and got married. He wasn't too happy. Um, these are the gulbras.

Now, again, this is Ernie's family. The family was a part of AA as well. And Mama Galbreath, she would go around and pick up the upper rooms and drop them off in the houses for meditation.

And I told you the alcoholics didn't like checking. Well, they would go into your bathroom and see if you had it open to the right day. They would actually check to see if you were reading the book.

Well, this is Susie. By the way, she is AA's first alline. You know, the Smith children gave up their bedrooms so that they could bring in the drunks.

um they would um detox them in the house and the kids would have to um leave their own bedrooms. So she calls herself a ace first elatine. Now after Ernie dies um she later uh uh Ray's h Ray's wife dies and the two love birds get back together.

I don't know if Anne and Bob rolled over in their grave or not, but the it's kind of a sweet love story that they ended up hooking up after all. uh Wall-Ally and Annabelle G, his story is fired again, and John and LG from 1939. Um they were all taking people in and the wives were doing this as much as the husbands were.

Uh the homes were open and a lot happened in 1939. The book's going to get published and Dr. Bob has kind of worn out his welcome at City Hospital where Bill D got sober.

And so he doesn't know where to put his patients and he approaches St. Thomas Hospital where Sister Ignatia um through a series of events um has had a nervous breakdown and they've had put her in charge of admissions for the hospital and she liked Dr. Bob.

So she agreed to sneak uh the guys up the hospital steps and put them the first guy whose name was Walter B. She put him in a flower room. That's where they would keep all the flowers from the hospital.

Now, you got to picture poor Walter. Let's say he's coming out of a blackout. Can you imagine waking up in the flower room?

Wouldn't you think you were at Wouldn't you think you were at your own funeral? This work would continue to grow. And she would face a lot of controversy because they used to say to Dr.

Bob and to to Ignatia. Now, the only way to get a patient in this hospital, they have to be alcoholic because she became the angel of Alcoholics Anonymous. And um she and Dr.

Bob um would treat over 5,000 patients. And Dr. Bob never charged for that.

He took out insurance every day by visiting the men in the ward. Now, Sister Ignatia did not think did not get women alcoholics at all. She thought we had a moral problem.

So, she I know. Oh, so she um uh never treated women until later when she went to Cleveland. And what she gave the men is this sacred heart.

This is where people believe that our medallions and things that we carry today first started from. She would give them to the patients and she would tell them, "If you're going to go take a drink, bring this back to me." And uh nobody ever did. I've seen old-timers reach in their wallets, they're kind of shaking, and they bring it out and they cry.

They loved her. They said, "If the Catholics don't canonize her, the Protestants will." Um, and she just really had a way with the men. And she did work with the families and uh Dr.

Bob, but she would call an every day cuz she didn't want to bother the good doctor and they would talk about how to treat each patient and each family. So, it was a little consciousness going on there all the time. There's another picture of her.

Uh, we fought to keep her as long as we could and uh when she left and I can't remember, it was probably in the late 50s. I'll have to I don't have it committed to memory, but I will tell you a great story. They loved her so much that um when she left well first of all in um and this is in aa comes of age um in 1951 um oh she went to St.

Vincent Charity Hospital in Cleveland. But outside the chapel, we've just redone the chapel for her. The ward is gone.

You can't visit that anymore in Akran. But um there's a plaque in gratitude to her that um we gave her in 1950. But when she left, you see this bridge here?

This is the bridge where they would drive the alcoholics. And to the left was St. Thomas Hospital.

And you couldn't put a patient in St. Thomas Hospital unless you were NA. you had to have a sponsor to put a patient in and you had to have a sponsor to pick that patient up.

That didn't get changed until uh later on. I think it was about 1983 that uh we let go of that policy. It was the same in Cleveland.

But when she left to go to Cleveland, it was a very sad day when we lost her. And the old-timers filled this bridge. It was early in the morning when she left.

and they filled the bridge in the early hours of the morning, put their headlights on and stood outside their cars to um out of respect for her when she left. And then Cleveland got her and I just went up to a dedication not too long ago where some of the old-timers remembered her and they they donated a highway to her called Ignatia Way. She would have hated that.

Um but um they loved her so much they would do anything for her. They would build a wing on the hospital for her, whatever she asked. room.

I'd like to talk to you a little bit about King School. When we finally leave the Oxford group, we're going to meet in Dr. Bob's home.

There'll be about 70some people. Dr. Bob will introduce himself as an alcoholic.

That's the first I know where anybody that's written that we introduced oursel as an alcoholic. He will open the Bible. He will begin reading from Sermon on the Mount.

But by 1940, we move into King's school. And um this is um where we'll talk a little bit more about the wives. they had a special part in the meeting.

Um they would wash dishes and make coffee and the women in the early days the women sat on one side and the men sat on the other and downstairs in the cafeteria you would go down and you would get coffee and donuts. Now refreshments were Ann's part of the meeting. I already mentioned to you that she'd go from table to table, make sure she introduced herself to everybody that was new.

And that's always a good thing to still do in AA. Um, and she'd say, "I want to welcome you and your lovely wife to Alcoholics Anonymous. We hope you will keep coming back." And I mentioned to you, never forgot anybody's name.

There would be no AA without the wives because in the early days, the wives sought help. They helped with the meetings. They opened their homes.

They did the 12step work. Um, they called to get men to visit the patients. They made the directories.

And they planned the picnics. One of the things that's so important, I believe, from AA that we can draw from the early days. There was so much fellowship.

They wanted those men to stay sober. They needed them to go back to work because it was depression times and times were very, very difficult. So they worked very hard to plan the parties and the picnics and to make sure there was a lot of fellowship and there was always a lot of fellowship which today we're losing.

Um I was able to join King School when I came in in 1978 and they would go and get the coffee and the donuts and bring it to the table and now we close right after the Lord's Prayer and the fellowship's gone and I miss it but I trace it back to what they were doing here. Um, this is Ruth Hawk. Um, this would become Bill's secretary.

Um, and she would be the gal that would type the book. And I would like to introduce her to you. As I said, I think I was a very good secretary and I didn't like the various >> Whoops.

I did that when I fixed my belt. As I said, I think I was a very good secretary and I didn't like the various jobs I had at that time. And for one reason or another, I' i'd simply tell them I was quitting in two weeks and do so.

And I was always able to get a job. Of course, it was depression times and you didn't work for much. But I actually came to them through an agency.

Hank had contacted an agency for a secretary and that's what I thought I was doing at the time. They're laughing because as I mentioned, she never did much secretary work. There was usually somebody passed out or um uh surrendering on their knees.

Um she did had she did dictation for Bill on the book and they paid her with these lousy certificates here. Those were they meant nothing. They just went down to the stationary store, grabbed them, and they weren't incorporated or anything.

They were worthless. But they would give her one of those uh rations a week. And uh little did she know that the book she was typing would one day save her daughter's life, Lori, who's got 30 years of sobriety.

And there's the typewriter. Notice the bottle there. I think that that clicking away all the time.

She had to type it out a lot. You know, they sent out the manuscript copy of the big book and it was mimographed off. So I don't really know how many times she had to type that, but it wasn't like word processors today.

It had to be pretty rough. She got the 5 millionth copy of the big book in Montreal. Um, this is just an inscription to Lois that I read last night from the big book about um him thanking her uh for her fortitude and the dark days together that made the pages possible.

So, Bill was always grateful to Lois uh for her sacrifices. Um, remember I mentioned to you Clarence? Clarence was a pigeon of Dr.

Bobs and um uh it was his wife Dorothy that I just got that picture of. Um it's an interesting story about Clarence. He wanted to be considered a trifounder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Um he was the first one I said to break away and start the meetings in Cleveland. Well, what happened in Cleveland, and this was in 1939, the Cleveland plane dealer, the newspaper there, wrote a series of 10 articles on Alcoholics Anonymous. And um it was actually Dorothy that had told um Clarence, she gave him an ultimatum.

Have you ever given anybody an ultimatum? She said, "I'm going to leave you if you don't go down and see Dr. Bob." And she even got him the bus ticket to go down and see him.

So, um when these articles came out, AA's I mean, people just poured into the meetings in Cleveland. 500 people came in, but there were only 13 guys sober. Imagine that.

So, it was Clarence that organized sponsorship and did so much of the early work in Cleveland. And about 80% of our membership, you can see it in the charts, would be coming out of Cleveland. But it was Dorothy that would make the calls.

And it would be Dorothy. Uh it was actually Dorothy that went with them up to Cornwall Press at the printing of the book. So, she did a lot to help AA in Cleveland.

And I'll play a little bit for her. And I think this is uh Ruth Hawk talking about her >> this and some of you may know Clarence of Cleveland who was a great had so much to do with starting the Cleveland AA groups. Uh his wife had a sister in Bronx, New York and she had come to visit the sister and had met Bill and she called Bill up and said she was in town and she'd like to see him and he said we're up at Cornwall.

Come on up. you know, and uh I must say that like most men of good taste, Bill like pretty girls too. And Dorothy was a lovely, warm uh just humorous, full of humor, full of laughter person, and he liked Dorothy very much.

So there we were, the four of us. And I had never met Dorothy before, but we immediately developed a a perfect rapport as though we'd known each other all our lives. And after we had done the stint for the day, we she and I shared a bedroom and we were talking away and talking away.

And this must have been 1:30, 2:00 in the morning. There was a knock on the door and it was Bill. And Bill couldn't sleep.

Hank was sound asleep somewhere, but Bill couldn't sleep. And he we had coffee set up, Darthothy and I. So, we were in a room with one big double bed.

So, Bill just got right in the middle and there we were. And we talked the rest of the night, the three of us in that position. Can you just picture Bill jumping in bed with those two girls?

His uh Clarence's story is homebrewmeister. Oh, by the way, um yeah, he is in the first edition. Now, Marie was Walters's the first guy to go into St.

Thomas Hospital and she actually um in the early days wrote a chapter uh to the wives. She was an alcoholic but um in the manuscript she wrote that um chapter. Let me tell you a little bit about Sylvia Kay.

She was really a good-looking woman and um she came to Akran to get the cure and she came with her non-alcoholic secretary Grace Cultus and um well I told you that Dr. Bob uh was a little nervous about women and she was so attractive and so wealthy that he sent her up to Cleveland and had Dorothy work with her. And when she went back on the train, Dr.

Bob's daughter told me that she thought that perhaps Dorothy was taking pills, but when she got back to Chicago, she got sober. And this would be 1939. And um but what's really interesting is her non-alcoholic secretary, Grace, will start the first intergroup office in her apartment.

This is Marty Man. Marty man will also get sober in 1939. Dr.

Tibo will give her a copy of the manuscript and she will take off for Clinton Street and um she will get sober in 1939. There's some debate over because now we're talking no longer about the wives. We're talking about the first AA women that are coming in and we never were clear on who they were and when they came in.

Both these women came in in 39. I think they were there's about a month apart between both of them. Um and I'd like to play for you a little bit about Marty.

Um, and she'll tell you a little bit about what it was like to walk into that group with all those men. >> Was the greatest feeling I had. And yet, and yet there wasn't a woman member there.

I was it. Now, I'll grant you there are a lot of nice things about that, particularly since a lot of the men didn't have wives. On the other hand, I really did feel that it would be very nice to talk to another woman alcoholic.

I had met a couple in the sanitarium. In fact, I knew of one uh who was no longer there and who needed what we had, but she wasn't there at the moment and I didn't quite know how to get to her. But I asked immediately.

I said, "Aren't there any women in this group?" There was a story in this manuscript about a woman, but I hadn't met her. And I found that she was living in Washington. her name was Florence where she and a man named Fitz had gone to try and start a group and I looked forward very eagerly to her return to New York or her visit to New York so I could meet and talk with her.

She was a considerably older woman and she had great many physical problems too and unfortunately I only saw her sober on a couple of occasions and she died before I had anywhere near completed my first year. So that did not really answer my need. And as the months went on, I worked awfully hard to get some companions in there.

I don't know how many women I tried to help, but I didn't. So you can imagine how difficult that would be when we take so for granted today there's women there. The hand of AA is there.

What it would be like for women all over the country and maybe your country to be the first woman to come in and there's not a woman in front of them. Um, I one of the things I get out of this talk is I always remember to thank a woman who's been around for a while for going before us and making it just a little easier. Well, she was talking about Florence Rankin.

Florence Ranken story was in the manuscript copy of the book. She's the one that came in and said when the boys wanted to call it a 100 men, she said you can't call it 100 men. You got to call it 100 men and one woman.

Uh her story was called A Feminine Victory. In 1939, she returned to drinking and died of an apparent suicide. I want to tell you of another woman that came out.

A lot of you folks know about the West Coast. This is Hollywood, California. It's dated December 6th, 1941.

Her name is Irma Leavone. Dear Mrs. Leavone.

At a meeting of the executive committee of the Los Angeles group of Alcoholics Anonymous held December 4th, 1941, it was decided that your attendance at group meetings was no longer desired until certain explanations and plans for the future were made to the satisfaction of this committee. This action has been taken for reasons which should be most apparent to yourself. It was decided that should you so desire, you may appear before members of this committee and state your attitude.

This opportunity will be afforded you between now and December 15th, 1941. You may communicate with us at the above address by that date. In case you do not wish to appear, we shall consider the matter closed and that your membership is terminated.

Alcoholics Anonymous Los Angeles group. Yeah, it wasn't that easy for a woman to come into Alcoholics Anonymous. Marty man um was the first woman uh to stay sober for a period of time.

She did relapse a couple times, one time even in 1960. She was a very bright woman and got very excited about sobriety and she realized that there was a stigma. I mean there's there's a stigma on alcoholics but there was really a stigma on women alcoholics.

But she felt that through education we could break that stigma. So she started the National Council on Alcoholism to educate people on alcohol and it still exists today. But she made a little mistake.

She put Bob and Bill's name on her stationery when she was requesting money and our trustees got a little upset about that, but we got a tradition out of it. Um, you know, we don't endorse or affiliate with any outside entities this day because of her example. Then there was Bobby Burgerer.

I don't have a picture of Bobby, but um she actually ended up after Ruth Hawk left the office, she would be the next secretary, but Marty man apparently knew a little bit about her. >> I did. And none of them made it, but she did.

Her name was Bobby. And Bobby Burgerer later became the secretary of what is today GSO where she worked for many years and where her name became known to AAS all over the world because she was the one who corresponded with me. And this was the gal I said couldn't make it.

Well, I was pretty glad she did make it. And it wasn't very long after that that one of her 12step calls turned out well. >> >> Now we're going to talk about Akran's Ethyl Macy.

When I first started doing this history book work, I thought Ethel was the first woman to ever get sober. That's what everyone in Akran thought. We didn't have history on the women at all.

We had history on the men, but we didn't have history on the women. So I used to say was the first woman who got sober. Her story is in the big book, a second edition from uh farm to city.

Um, however, she was the first woman with continuous sobriety. Her sobriety never broke. So, they put that little adjective in there that made all the difference.

She weighed 300 lb. Um, so I don't think she had too much trouble with the wives. And she also came in with her husband, Rosco, and he was a skinny little guy about half her size.

They say that she looked like um Mutton Jeff. She also started the first woman's group. Let's hear from her.

>> And then we started at King School, which was the only group then. And we went there religious religiously for a year. We never missed a Wednesday night.

And I just I just loved every bit of it. I at first I thought that the wives would look down on me and they didn't. Uh I always uh I I just can't ever fail to give the wives so much credit.

They were such a help to me and I thought that that probably they'd say well oh they say she's one of those things too but the only thing that was said and not in unkindness at all they turned me over to Annabelle Gillum and she says well I understand you drank too and I instead of resenting it I said yes that's what I'm here for and we saw several different people that we knew. Annabelle Gillum was not alcoholic, but that's who they gave her to. I love this one.

What? Watch her name here. This is how she introduced herself.

Syibil Doris Adam Stratton >> continued by full stop. >> I got to do that again. I don't know why that happened.

Here we go again. Cy Doris Adam Stratton Hart >> continued by saying, "If there are any women here, they must go." continued by continued by saying, "If there are any women here, they must go." And he meant me, I thought, because I didn't see any other women there. I didn't see any other women there.

It turned out there had been a couple, you know, sitting over kind of at the side, and they were non-alcoholic wives. It was simply that those good fellows there had had a closed meeting for a couple of years. And if the couple of the wives or three or four of the wives came down, they they they just wandered outside and sat on the Davenport and talked about their husbands or knitted or ch exchanged recipes or something because there was no Alanon, no program for them.

And I guess he spotted these two women over there and said, as is our custom, will the women please wait outside and come back in for refreshments? But it was just as good as throwing me out bodily when he said the women go. That was me.

That was all. I was so self- concerned. So I left >> she had read the Saturday Evening Post.

She had phoned New York and she had gotten the name of this group. So she went and um she took her husband with her and they did not know that she was the alcoholic. So they asked her to leave and the non-alcoholic husband stayed.

Now I mentioned to you that the Saturday Evening Post had come out. Now find out what happens after she comes back the next week. Here's what happens to her.

>> He got down to the last stack with big rubber band around it about 50. And he said, "I've been saving these to the last because they're all from women and we have a woman alcoholic now and her name is Syibble. So come on up here, Cibil.

I'm putting you in charge of all the women." And I thought, "Boy, I got promoted in a hurry. I was thrown out last week and now I'm in charge. So I tottered up there and as I told you last night, I said, "I can't.

I can't. I can't. Why can't you?" I said, "I'll be drunk next Friday.

I always have been. It won't be any different unless unless >> Can you imagine your first meeting? Somebody hands you 50 names to go 12step." She stayed sober.

She had the most amount of sobriety in Montreal. And I had a chance to hear and Clancy speak. And it was so cute cuz I know a lot of you know Clancy and you love him.

And I I sat there with the girls I was sponsoring. And it was on sponsorship. And she is so sweet.

And she she was saying, um, oh yes, and you know when you sponsor someone, you just have to love them. You just have to unconditionally love them. And I'm going, yeah, that's right.

You got to just love them. And Clancy stepped up and said, "You love them like that, you'll kill them." you know, different strokes for different folks. Uh, this gal Esther E got sober in 1943.

She was known as the flower of the south and she show sobered up in Houston. I was just down in Dallas. They talk about her all the time.

She she started a lot of meetings, was good friends with Bill and was a real pioneer in this program. Um, I've already mentioned this, but it's certainly worth mentioning again. Um, in the Oxford group days when they would get quiet and listen, they would write down what God said to them.

Two women, two women were called two listeners. They remain anonymous to this day. And they wrote a book that AJ Russell, who was an Oxford group writer, went and edited their years of meditation.

Then Richmond Walker got sober in 1942 and he took the book and he took each page of God calling and he made it into a meditation and a prayer book for alcoholics and he called it the 24-hour book. They offered it to our office. We turned it down and Hazelton built an empire on it.

I love this early female sponsorship. This comes out of Dr. Bob and the good old-timers.

There was a gal that got sober and she would they said she looked kind of like a football player and um here's what she said about sponsorship. If she sponsored you and you got drunk, she'd pick you up and slap you around. Then she'd tell you if you didn't get sober, you were going to get some more.

Here's um a woman trying to console Sandra. She says, "It's really no disgrace, Sandra. Just go to a meeting with me and you'll see." Now, I want to tell you about a Grapevine article that came out in October of 1946.

Here's what that grapevine article said about women. The percentage of the women who stay in AA is low. Many women form attachments too intense, bordering on the emotional.

No. So many women want to run things. Too many women don't like women.

By the way, the wives in Cleveland threw out the first AA women. They were really a threat. Women talk too much.

Women are a questionable help working with men and vice versa. Sooner or later, a woman on the make sies into a group on the prowl for phone numbers and dates. A lot of women are attention demanders.

Few women can think in the abstract. Oh, you think that's funny? The men seem to be chuckling just a little too loud.

Women's feelings get hurt too often. Far too many women in AA cannot get along with the non-alcoholic wives of AA members. Look at this magazine.

This was Confidential magazine came out with this article. Alcoholics Anonymous. No booze but plenty of babes.

Hard to believe, isn't it? And here's Nell Wing. I I did a talk for the National Archives workshop on Nell Wing and the more I talked about her, this is the non-alcoholic secretary of Bill and you want to talk about the women woman behind the man.

Um this woman was Bill's gal Friday. Um and and he where you know when he wrote the 12 and 12 and all the conferences and everything, it was Nell. Nell was there with him when um flew down on the plane with Bill when he died in Miami and uh was holding his hand holding him telling him to hold on fast Bill and um she was a true friend of Alcoholics Anonymous.

She was a friend of mine and and um um she was such a loyal companion that when I went to go this do this talk on Nell as a tribute to her um she died just a few years ago and she was our first archavist and I I wanted to talk about her but I there wasn't anything to talk about. She was in such service to Bill and Lois that her whole life was Bill and Lois. So I ended up almost having to talk about what she did for Bill and Lois, not what her interests were.

um and she would wrote a book called Grateful to Have Been there and um she was grateful to be a part of AA. She was just a true non-alcoholic servant. We had a lot of friends um that helped us along the way and it wasn't just alcoholics.

Um Bill will come to town um shortly before Dr. Bob dies and we're going to lose Anne Smith in 1949. U it's believed that we knew Dr.

Bob was dying. She knew that and she just didn't want to be around for that day. Um so she will precede him in death.

Agnesia will be taking care of her. But be uh after she dies um we wanted an Akran we wanted to build her a beautiful uh uh monument to her and to Dr. Bob for being the uh who they were to Alcoholics Anonymous.

and and Bob actually had the blueprints and when Bill came he laid them out on the floor and then he looked up at Bill and he said, "Why don't you and me just get buried like regular folks?" So, if you come to Akran and you visit the grave, that's what you'll see there. Just a humble uh grave with their names on it. There's a humble grave for you.

just a marker uh in um East Dorset uh right down the street from the inn that Bill was born in. By the way, he was born in a room behind a bar. Don't you think that's great?

Um there's two simple markers, one to Lois and one to Bill. And um you wouldn't even know they were in that cemetery except it's so worn from people uh visiting the grave. And then uh finally um it was John Cyberling uh Henrietta's son that told us about Henrietta.

And I remember when he did that, it was at a conference I was asked and somebody said, "Where is your mother buried?" And he said, "In Kentucky." And he said, "And do you know what it says on her grave?" It says, "Let go and let God." Thank you. >> >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day. >>