The Oxford Group Connection Page 3

Now all the earlier seeming coincidences converge, and this story merges into the facts we all know from our AA literature.

Onto this scene landed the "rum hound" from New York, moved by what both Bill Wilson and Henrietta Seiberling felt was the guidance of God. Bill had recovered from his disease, and was determined to stay sober by seeking out and helping another drunk. The "rum hound from New York", (Bill's self-description when he made the fateful phone call to Henrietta), "just happened" to bring to Akron some solutions heretofore never assembled in one place and delivered by just one person.

1. Some important knowledge about the disease of alcoholism accumulated through the work of Dr.Silkworth at Towns Hospital in New York.

2. An important spiritual solution to the problem that had been passed from Dr. Carl Jung to Rowland Hazard and then on to Bill by Ebby Thatcher.

3. A validation of this spiritual solution by the scholarly studies of Professor William James.

4. A linkage between the problem of alcoholism, and this solution that God could and would solve the problem if a relationship were sought with Him by using the Oxford Group's practical program of action, which was already proven by the results experienced by Rowland and Ebby when they followed the Oxford Group program.

In Akron, T. Henry and Clarace Williams and Henrietta Seiberling were attending Oxford Group meetings at the Mayflower Hotel and elsewhere. Dr. Bob Smith also attended with his wife, Anne. He shied away from talking about his problem publicly, and continued drinking. In her concern for Bob, Henrietta suggested to T. Henry that if they could set up a smaller, more private meeting perhaps Bob might feel more at ease and be able to make a confession in the Oxford Group fashion, and a commitment to sobriety. T. Henry's home was chosen for this special meeting and these meetings started on a Wednesday in April of 1935--just one month before Bill Wilson came to Akron. These meetings were usually led by T. Henry, Henrietta, or Florence Main, and at one of these Dr. Bob was able to confess that he was a secret drinker and needed help as he could not stop. This was the very place that was to become the home to the "about to begin" Alcoholic Contingent of the Oxford Group.

We can now see how all these characters contributed to putting Dr. Bob and Bill at a meeting in Henrietta Seiberling's home in the Gate House of the Firestone Estate, and make possible the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.

(5) The land was subdivided and exists yet today as a prosperous residential developemnet called the Edison Estates.

(6) Bill Wilson was also furnished quarters here seven years later after he started working with Dr. Bob!

(7) This paragraph was taken from "The Akron Genesis and AA".

Akron - May 11, 1935

We can find no references anywhere to indicate that Bill Wilson considered or made any conscious effort to locate an Oxford Group member when he made his desperation phone call in the Mayflower Hotel in Akron. Henrietta Seiberling wrote as follows:

"Bill looked into the cocktail room and was tempted and thought, "Well, I'll just go in there and get drunk and forget it all and that will be the end of it!"

Instead, having been sober five months in the Oxford Group, he said a prayer. He received guidance to look at a ministers' directory board and a strange thing happened. He put his finger on one name--Tunks. The Rev. Walter Tunks was Harvey Firestone's minister, and Firestone had brought Buchman and thirty Oxford Group members to Akron for ten days in gratitude for their help for his son, Russell, a drunkard.

Out of the act of gratitude of this one father, this whole chain started.

R.R.

endnote 1. - This writer, along with the Akron Archivist Ray G., had the good fortune to be able to visit Jim and Eleanor Newton at their home in Ft. Myers, Florida, in May of 1993. Thay are active and well, she at age 94, and he at 88. Eleanor was employed by Sam Shoemaker, who introduced her to Frank Buchman. She went abroad as an Oxford Group worker with Frank in 1926, and has remained active in the movement ever since.