A LASTING AND RESILIENT FRIENDSHIP

Bill Wilson first visited Chicago in February of 1940 to share in the excitement of rapid growth in a new AA Chapter, the Chicago Group. Beginning in September of 1939 letters were exchanged between the Alcoholic Foundation office and the new members in Chicago, but Bill wrote directly to one member, the founder of the Group, Earl Treat of Evanston. Earl got sober in 1937 under the sponsorship of Dr. Bob after visits with his family in the Akron area, and it was two years before there were other new members to hold the first Illinois AA meeting. Bill, also very close to Dr. Bob and the Akron Group, may have known about Earl but most likely didn’t meet him until the 1940 Chicago visit. Friends by letter and telephone from the start, Bill stayed with Earl and his wife Katie during that first 1940 winter trip. And, at every Illinois visit during the 1940s, Bill and Lois (when she accompanied him) stayed with the Treats. Lois Wilson’s handwritten desk telephone book had Earl and Katie’s Illinois numbers for every year’s new book beginning with her 1940 entries, and the two families kept in touch with each other. The favor was returned as early as 1946 when Earl visited New York and stayed at Bill and Lois’ Stepping Stones home in Bedford Hills. Bill also trusted Earl well enough to ask him to report to the Alcoholic Foundation Board meetings in 1947, covering for Bill who was away on a trip, and he nominated Earl to the Alcoholic Foundation Board as an AA Trustee in 1949. Dozens of letters between the two friends are in the files of the GSO Archives, and the correspondence shows a strong bond of caring, insights to early AA life, and the enthusiasm for AA service growth. Although not yet found in their correspondence, Nell Wing, Bill’s long-term secretary and AA’s first Archivist at the General Service Office, recalls that our Short Form of the Twelve Traditions is the direct result of Earl’s friendly suggestions to Bill. Their letter-writing stopped in 1955 when Earl suffered a crippling stroke, but Bill always inquired of his good friend’s health. A tribute to Earl and Chicago AA was handwritten on a photo Bill sent to the Chicago Central Office in 1962, the year of Earl’s death: “In gratitude for your contributions in our pioneering time and since. Devotedly, Bill” Information is courtesy of the Chicago Archives, the AA Archives at the General Service Office, and The Collection at the Stepping Stones Foundation, and is used with permission. This history piece was released to the Illinois State A.A. Conference in August 2002. Respectfully, N. IL. Area 20 Historian. ************************* Transcribed from a talk given by Bill W. at Chicago, IL, February 1951. The title of the talk is “The Need for GSO.” Excerpt- “I must say that a powerful impetus was given the Traditions by the gentleman who introduced me (Earl T.) One day he came down to Bedford Hills after the long form of the Traditions were written out at some length because in the office we were forever having to answer questions about group troubles so the original Traditions were longer and covered more possibilities of trouble. Earl looked at me rather quizzically and he said ‘Bill, don’t you get it through your thick head that these drunks don’t like to read. They will listen for a while but they will not read anything. Now, you want to capsule these Traditions as simply as are the Twelve Steps of recovery.’ So he and I started the capsulizing process which lasted a day or two and that put the Traditions into their present form.” ************************* THE FIRST OUTREACH IN NORTHERN ILLINOIS An Illinois 1930s-era college farm town would always have at least one drug store with a soda fountain, penny candy, magazines, newspapers, cigarettes, and of course, a door with a bell at the top that would ring when it was opened or closed… This description might be just a mythical image of an earlier time, but there is one fact of northern Illinois A.A. history—a particular Dekalb pharmacist was sober in 1939 when the Big Book was first published. In April of 1940 a letter arrived at the office of the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City: “Alcoholics Anonymous is new to me, and I’m interested to make contacts in this vicinity that I may become a member in good standing.” Perrie S., the pharmacist, wrote that he “read ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ thoroughly and wished to say, that I established myself with a Superior Being by myself, with my own thoughts, during a 28 day leave from business with persons who at that time were in the same fix as myself.” Ruth Hock, the Foundation office’s secretary, replied within a few days and thanked him for his very sincere letter. She referred him to an “Earl T. and the Chicago membership, and we assure you they will appreciate an opportunity to talk with you.” The Chicago Group was the nearest A.A. Chapter, over 120 miles east of Dekalb, and Perrie rode the trains into the city many times to attend its meetings. Over the next few years, Perrie and Ruth exchanged letters on a regular basis. Ruth, in different letters from New York, suggested that he contact other new members in nearby Dixon, Sterling, and Rockford. These towns were home to the 1940s “A.A. Loners” who eventually formed the first Groups in northern Illinois. Our pharmacist friend in DeKalb, Perrie S., remains the earliest correspondent of record. Delegate Area 20 Historian, Algonquin, Illinois, August, 2002. Note: Quotes are used with the permission of the A.A. Archives at the General Service Office in NYC.