Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- Carrying the Message Through Archives 7th Archives Workshop
- Speaker
- Unidentified S
- Date
- 2002-09-01
Transcript
Source: Unidentified S – Carrying the Message Through Archives 7th Archives Workshop – 2002-09-01.mp3 File: unidentified-s-carrying-the-message-through-archives-7th-archives-workshop-2002-09-01.mp3 Duration: 00:27:52
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At any rate, this is the rest of the bedroom now, but it was a very moving experience, you know, and you'll have those types of experiences. Of course, this is Dr. Bob at med school, and, you know, he originally was at the University of Michigan, got kicked out, went to Rush to finish up, where when we went down to the Alster Chicago Open, we were here for the Fourth Archives up in Chicago, and we went by the Rush Hospital where he finished up.
It was kind of neat. It's pretty run down, but it's another piece of AA history. These are some old books. I don't know if—I don't think they're Dr. Bob's books, but this is the notorious bathroom, and it's quite a legend with this door here. You know, Dr. Bob used to throw—put the pint bottles in his gloves, throw them up on the roof, and then come in through this door and pick them up, because Ann would frisk him at the door, you know what I mean?
So when he got done, he'd actually throw—someone pull out these drawers and throw them down in there. But also, he used to—when we come back, I don't think I have a shot of it, but in the hallway there's some more—you can't see it here—but there was some more drawers. But when I asked Smitty about that when we were going through it in February, and he said, Oh no, he used to do it up here too. And so, yeah, and then he'd take them up on the roof.
And also, but when we came back for Founders' Day, while we were doing that, one of the trustees said, Yeah, we found these bottles, and when we came back they had the drawer open with, like, plexiglass over it, but some of the bottles they found right there to kind of show you how it happened. So it's kind of a neat thing. But here you can see the porch that he threw the stuff up on. There's a better shot of it, but that's where we're coming from.
And they come around, and then this leads over here. Now they bought the house next door, which leads—this walkway leads back to, and that's where they have the archives. Which are in the midst of being worked on. But they come in here, and you can take a tour. This is the front of that house. And as you go in here, they have all kinds of old pamphlets, and you see little Sister Ignatia on there. I want to talk a little bit more about her towards the end.
I don't know, how are we doing on time anyway? I get lost in these things. I just keep moving, but, oh, okay. Well, at any rate, these are some of the old early pamphlets and that. These are just some photographs. There's Sister Ignatia on the left. That little medicine cabinet was a duplicate of what Dr. Bob would have used, but now since then they've actually got some of the actual medicine chests that Dr.
Bob had. Now they're in this archives house, if you will. And these are just some other photos. Of course, Dr. Bob and Anne there on the left. And, of course, Bill and Lois here. It's kind of neat. But you go through and there's a little oil painting. But you can go and see all this stuff. You can't really get—you can just get an idea. Now these are a bunch of the old—some of these are old Oxford Group books, Shoemaker books and stuff. It's kind of hard to see with the glare.
Then the grapevines up on the top there. And here's some more stuff. There's Smitty, and I guess that must be Sue in the picture, just to give you a feel. And, like, some of these, you can't really see it that well, but some of those are old Big Books up on the front, and different languages and stuff on the top left there. But really, you got to go through and tour. And this is On the Tail of a Common. That's a book about the life of Frank Buchman. And that's Frank on the left there as well.
He was the founder of the Oxford Group. He says, Trying to stay out of the picture, pardon there, but doesn't matter. This one book down here, Extraordinary Living for Ordinary Men, that's a Sam Shoemaker book. It's another great book, the old Oxford Group stuff. Here, my utmost for His Highest is a book Dr. Bob used to read for morning meditation by Oswald Chambers. Of course, Fulton Oursler, he was involved in the, is it the Liberty article, Bob?
I'm trying to remember. I think that's what it was. At any rate, these are all old Oxford Group books. These are the Father Fowle, well, Father John Doe records, and, you know, for the Golden Book series on the various items. And, you know, we heard a lot about it last year in Louisville. The fellow did the presentation. That was wonderful. Oh, this little rack here, you see, it says Kinsler's,
[00:05:00]
Kistler's Donuts. That was the first coffee shop that A.A.ers went to after the meeting, but it's out of business now. But it's kind of a neat little thing. And this is actually what used to be the Kistler Donut shop. So it's kind of neat to realize how long that's been going on. This is the Akron City Hospital. This is where Dr. Bob first started practicing. And this is the front of it, but this is the better part in the back here. You see that little black awning, if you will?
This is the parking lot where Dr. Bob probably took his last drink. Probably snuck in those doors after those, I think he had one or two bottles of beer, I can't remember exactly, but went up and did the operation, then slipped out and didn't get back to the house till like nine at night. And, you know, Bill thought he had triggered the allergy, but in fact he was out making amends, which is still amazing to me to hear that.
Well, this is the old city hospital. No, this is Dr. Bob's office. It was up on the ninth floor. This is downtown Akron on Main Street, and now you see it's a Chapter 13. That's a bankruptcy attorney's office. But, you know, it's an interesting comment there. I don't know what that means, but you can see he had a very successful practice being in a building like this. But that's in that key building.
If you go there, you can visit all these sites. This is the King School group, where the King School, where we met. There's a shot of the door. If you go there, if you go up to Founders Day, you should really go up on Wednesday night and go to the King School group and meet at eight o'clock, I think. And it's another church that's on the way from the school. It's not at the school, but if you go there during the day on Thursday, they're usually open. They'll let you come in and see and look around, and they have a little plaque there. And I went down to the room, and apparently Dr.
Bob used to sit in the corner seat, and after he passed away, no one would sit there for a couple of years. But then finally some newcomer just came in and sat down, and there was kind of a gasp that somebody sat in his chair, and they never sat nothing. But then they really got to thinking about it and said, Well, that's what Dr. Bob would have wanted. He wouldn't want that seat to be empty, so it's kind of cool. But on the top here, this is the speech from Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address, and the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. It's kind of neat.
I'm a huge Lincoln fan, not that that matters, but it added some significance for me. But what is this? Oh, this is a Mayflower again. You see on the bottom, that's— Some of the intricate architecture. This was a state of the art. This was the best hotel in town when Bill was there. This is where the King School group meets now, this church here. And that's just kind of a nice steeple. And this is St. Thomas Hospital. This is where Dr.
Bob and Sister Ignatia treated over 5,000 drunks, as they say, who come in here, and they have, see it up there, St. Thomas Hospital. But you go on up to the fourth floor, and they still have this. They call this the first alcohol treatment center, Ignatia Hall, that's what they call it. But while we were there, you know, this is part of the chapel. This didn't come out too well. But you ever see in the book Dr.
Bob and the Good Oldtimers, this is a better shot of it. I need to get better at taking photos. But you ever see that picture with Sister Ignatia playing on the organ? It was actually taken here. But they've since closed off the third floor access where the organ was, because I says, Where's the organ? You know, and they said, Oh, they closed it off. I'm like, What do you mean? I wanted to see, you know, where she was playing the organ, you know. But these are really beautiful artifacts.
You get a chance to go look at it, you can see that. One of the things that I brought along, and I'll pass this along, those of— I also went to the third, and I archived Sister Ignatia used to hand out these scapulas and said, Before you take a drink, you have to bring this back to me. So I'll pass that around if you want to look at it. That's the only one I got. I'd bring some more. Tell you what, if it comes to Lauderdale next year, I'll bring some.
I'll get some more. No, no, it's not a bribe at all. Well, let me tell you this story. And I was looking for a place to get them, and I actually went up to Cleveland. We were in Akron, and we went up to Cleveland, and I went to intergroup there because I figured they didn't have any at St. Thomas, and so I didn't have any there. And I asked them there, and they said somebody that happened to be—they said they didn't have any—but somebody that happened to be there said, Well, why don't you try this little store around the corner? And I went there, and they had tons of them.
So every time I go up there, I get a bunch of them. That's where that came from.
[00:10:02]
That I don't remember what this is about. Well, this must be his first office then, because I think they used to eat downstairs here. There's a deli or something down in here. Yeah. This is St. Vincent's Hospital in Cleveland, and we went up there to—this is where Sister Ignatia went after she left St. Thomas, and it was an interesting story. I went there, and you go there, and it's St. Vincent apparently, and she named it Rosary Hall Solarium, which is RHS, which is Robert Holbrook Smith, which they didn't figure that out for a while, but, you know, that was her tribute to Dr. Bob.
But it's a pretty neat little place, and that's But for the Grace of God. They have this little picture here. Somebody told me who this was. I can't remember now, but I like that little Take Hope, All Ye Who Leave Here. That's kind of what we have in AA. But this—this Rosary Hall now is not where it originally was, but this is on the floor where it used to be, because when we got there, they said, Listen, you know, let me call over there.
It's now a Matt Talbot women's retreat, but let me call over and see if I can take you where Sister Ignatia used to have their spiritual room. And so they allowed us to do that. But I walked in this room. It's only like a little hospital room size, maybe 15 feet wide or long and 12 feet wide, whatever it was. This picture of the prodigal son is there, and then you just walk in and you feel the spirituality just oozing out of the walls.
It's unbelievable. I can feel it just talking about it now, and it's another opportunity you should not miss on this journey. But it's a beautiful little experience, and this is the chapel in St. Vincent's, and I think that's about all. I think I have a couple more shots here. Well, this is humility. This is the plaque that was supposed to have been on Dr. Bob's desk, which I choose to believe it was, but it's a neat little deal.
That's it. So, I don't know if anyone has any questions. Oh, one other quick thing. This is a piece of wood from Dr. Bob's house. They had to replace the steps, so if you make a contribution, they'll let you have some of that. New York has 12 counties. Area 49. New York is divided into four areas, and Area 49 has 12 counties. You know what 12 counties are? Well, I know why they're 12. One for the Yankees and one for the Johnny-Reds to keep the Yankees straight up.
Yeah, okay. Home stages. And we have quite a display too, you know, that we show too. When I go around, I can set up literally six of these tables and still have a lot more material. And I've just acquired the, you heard last night from Erin… About the Ground Zero material, that was divided into three parts. Two steel plaques were made from the ironworkers—were actually engineers down there—about this large, and it says AA on them.
One was given to New York Intergroup because they did a lot, were instrumental with the meetings, and one was given to General Service Office. And there was a book that everybody signed and wrote in, and that the General Service Office got. It looks like I got my hand on that. I have the plaque of the meeting, five pictures of the area, and I have a big pad that everybody wrote on that I display. Cool. Okay.
So that's just a little about our—you know, I didn't talk about our displays, but we have them. You know, we have it. Thank you. And I should say one other thing too. You know, we—one of our counties, the county I live in, Suffolk County, is probably one of the few counties in the United States and Canada that has a 24-hour answering service volunteer maintained by the groups, started in '73. Past delegate on Long Island, he lived there, passed away, who was against this answering service, but was on the committee, and I acquired all his material, and he has all the notes.
And he has all the notes and the, on the inception, on all the meetings,
[00:15:03]
all the initial calls, the entire record. Yeah, it's quite a pile. So I have to pass that down to Suffolk Intergroup for their archives. Yeah, I would just encourage you to use whatever materials you can to bring AA alive and carry this message. It's—my experience has been people love seeing these slides and seeing, you know, they talk about Bill pacing back and forth in Mayflower, and, you know, if you haven't done that yourself, you should get up and go, because it's a great experience, and you can get that feeling, try to capture that feeling Bill had while he's there.
So, I have a drinker, should I call? What am I going to do? You know, it's not like you can just run down to the local meeting, you know, at that time. So, but it's a neat experience to do that and go through the house, go through the Akron Intergroup archives. It's a neat time. You should spend a couple days there. Do yourself a favor, because then you pique other people's interest. Just like every time I talk about people just love hearing about it, they just want to go. We're going to have a group go up there again this year, so it should be cool. But, I mean, I don't know if anybody has any questions or comments, suggestions.
When are you going up there? I'll be up there Wednesday night for the King School meeting and go from there. I bet he said you're going to have a group, though. Oh yeah, well, we've got probably at least ten people already that are going to go, and maybe we'll probably end up with twenty-five. I'll fly up there and just go around to the sites. You know, one of the things I didn't stare, and I guess I should, is the neat thing about following is that you go there on…
Sunday morning, and they have these motorcycle processions to Dr. Bob's grave. But you go there by the gravesite and they do a eulogy to Dr. Bob and also to Sue, because Sue passed away this year. They incorporate that in. But at the end of that, then they have these fellows come along playing the bagpipes, playing Amazing Grace, and they're not a dry eye in the place. It's very, very moving. I would just like to make another comment.
One of the things, when I acquired one of the material I have, ours is a rotating two-year position, and I have all these tapes, and I always said, What do you do with them? So now when they have conventions, I play a tape, or I put up a sign and say, At three o'clock, this tape is being played, audio. And it's amazing that people come and listen. You know, I make a duplicate of the tape, obviously, so that people come and actually listen, because I say, I have all this material that just sits there and it has no value unless I—why don't I have people hear it, you know?
And it's like I just having another meeting. That's the main reason why collect anything unless it's going to have some use to the archive, or to the area, or to the district, or to the intergroup. Why collect all those things and stuff? Exactly. Don, we had—Barry and I are friends with— Barry is. He wasn't you. It wasn't the Australian one, right? We had a friend that got sober in November of 1940, and he was in Cleveland.
Mr. Stradish doped him up with a strap so he could walk. And he went down, but they took him down to Dr. Bob's. Two guys took him down and said, Dr. Bob thinks that you're good material. He'll accept you as a member of A.A. And he went down there, and what he kept going to meetings there, what happened was that they would go upstairs to the second floor, get in front of the chairs and pray that Dr.
Bob take the alcoholics. And they would pray down, bowing in front of those chairs, and then they would go downstairs. And that's when Bill was meeting. But it was just the AAs upstairs, and then it was everybody, you know, before the other, because there were only fifteen people there. What took him there? Clancy. Clancy Eudey. Clancy Eudey. In fact— Was that the other friend of Barry's? Oh yeah, yeah.
He's a friend of mine. No, I know. We knew each other. Well, he died in Pounders Day in '92, '91. He had 92. He had 51 years. Wow, that's wonderful. But back from, you know, from 1940.
[00:20:01]
Uh-huh. And yeah, we got a lot of good stuff from him. Yeah, that's neat. You know, I didn't mention this, but I got sober—I actually got sober in Michigan, through the Detroit area and the Ann Arbor area A.A., which was heavily influenced by Akron, which— Arthur at Trailbridge got sober, stayed at Dr. Bob's house for over a year, '38, '39 timeframe, '40. Somewhere in there, and started AA in Detroit, so I guess somewhat.
And then I moved to Florida after seven years of sobriety, so picked up on the two hot spots of AA, I guess, for lack of a better word. But it's neat. It's a wonderful experience. To go a little further about Clarence, Dr. Bob was Clarence's sponsor, and then after Dr. Bob died, Dr. Bob's Clarence Snyder. Clarence Snyder became Clarence's sponsor, and Clarence came to Hawaii to visit Clarence. We all went around the island with him.
He was there for, I don't know, a week or so, and we had a really wonderful… '81. Which was the meeting in Canada, the international Montreal, and we died shortly before that. Nice to get acquainted with some of them. Yeah. Yeah, the one thing that we, I guess we should get a shot of is the home where Clarence Snyder started the first actual AA, the first group called Alcoholics Anonymous, but when they split off from…
It'd be like Matt. They told him it wouldn't work. Yeah, but Dr. Bob actually went up to those meetings and supported them. Some. But they thought when he told them he was going to leave, they said it wouldn't work. Hartford people tried to stop him. Yeah, they didn't want him to leave. Showed up in force. Yeah. Yeah, but they showed up in force. He ended up with almost 600 people. Is that right? Yeah.
Yeah, there was 14 people in Akron, Bob, and Bill had about 60 in New York. Yeah. But Clarence had almost 600, including… Yeah, the Cleveland Plain Dealer. You know, that's the neat thing about coming to these events, too, is you get all this background history that you just, you know, through basically bouncing things around off each other, and it's kind of neat. I guess we're close to time, aren't we?
We have about five minutes. Anybody wants a question? Go ahead. I have a question. I'm not an archivist, and I really, you all know a hundred thousand times more than I do, but I had understood that Bob wanted his remembrance to be anonymous, and that he didn't want a lot of hoopla about having founded AA. And I can understand the house being a museum, but it sounds to me as if it's becoming a shrine, and I'm a little concerned about that, and I wondered if, well, some of you know a lot more about this than some, and— It's why the big banner is no longer up there at Bob's estate, because that would have been a big flap created over that just because of what you said.
And the big shrine stuff, I don't think that you're going to see that in the future. That's a thing of the past. The foundation actually listens to everybody else, and so I think they're going back to what Dr. Bob wanted. Look at his gravestone, and you can tell what he wanted. Yeah, see, we're trying to push it that way, too, and we know some people involved, and we're trying to help to facilitate that type of movement more in line with AA's spirit of anonymity, you know, and the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, and therefore our co-founders' wishes should be the same way, in my opinion.
I mean, that's just my opinion, but— Well, you had your hand up. Yeah, my name is Drew, and I'm an alcoholic. Hello, Drew. And I'm supposed to be the, uh, District 10, Area 15, which is Miami. And I happened to be the first one that was sent to this thing, you know. And, you know, we AA people do some crazy stuff. You know, next month we'll be voting for office. So, I mean, that'd be the opportunity after December, and then they spend this money to send me here, you know.
I mean, I'm glad they sent me here. I'm really glad they sent me here. Well, you just have to remain a member of the committee, that's all. That's right. Pass that knowledge on. That's right. But knowing how we work anyway, nobody might take the job, and I might have to— You might slip into it again. That's great. I really enjoyed this.
[00:25:02]
Well, let me tell you something. I view AA Archives as a lifelong journey, and that's exactly what it is to me. It's just a continuing process of educating people, helping them preserve things, and just keeping that old spirit alive. Because, you know, does anyone here know how far we can thin this thing out before it stops working? Before we start killing people by sharing half the message or part of the message? I don't know where that point is, but I don't want to find out.
So there's one thing he said, too, that really, really hit home with me about group history. I've started a binder for group history. And we have a hundred groups in our area, and I sent to World Service for a list, and they said— Eighty. This is 80 registered active groups and 79 inactive groups. Now, after I dug up all the information I could see, I only found two groups listed, you know, Miami Beach Group and Killian Pines Group, you know.
And I'm trying to talk to send me some information, and I've been trying to talk to GSO to send me what they might have. I'll get my sponsor to help you on that. But it's kind of difficult. He's just retired. He's got time. I'd like to get back. Man, I'd be happy. So, you know, I actually went to groups with the group histories and asked them to fill it out, and their reply was that they weren't interested. So, you know, you have to honor the groups. Well, it's 1:15, and if there are no— I'm sorry, I'm looking at New York time. You're right. I'm looking at New York time.
It's 10:15. I'd like to close in the usual manner for those who would choose to join us. Keep us sober. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.