Excerpt from Indianapolis AA History:
From several sources I will attempt to weave a new,
but connected pattern of how AA was started here in
Indianapolis and identify the critical people who
constitute the threads.
Let me quote a description of Doherty Sheerin, the
man who founded AA in Indianapolis. J. D. Holmes (who
was one of the original AA group in Akron) said in
a letter that Doherty Sheerin was:
" ... the boy who put AA on the Indiana map. I have
always considered him the number 3 man in A.A., a
statement I can boldly make after having been
closely associated with Dr. Bob and Bill W. And
there are others who think the same as I."
That is an extraordinary thing to say. Next to Dr. Bob
and to Bill W. in his understanding of the AA program,
Doherty Sheerin was the number three man in
AA. Later I will read this letter in its entirety.
Who was this spectacular man who had such an affect
on my life and on yours? No doubt AA would have found
its way to Indianapolis. But the historical evidence
seems to indicate this is how AA actually came together
in Indianapolis.
Who was this man?
His name, as we have said, was Doherty Sheerin.
Other names that you will hear are "J. D." who was
James D. Holmes. He was AA # 8 and lived in Akron,
Ohio. His wife was from Evansville, and J.D. and his
wife eventually relocated to Evansville, where her
family was still residing as this story unfolds. J. D.
had started the first A.A. group in Indiana in Evansville
on April 23, 1940.
The other essential man in this unfolding episode
is Irving M. from Cleveland. Irving M. is sometimes
referred to as Erwin. His last name was Meyerson. The
long time Indianapolis Saturday Evening group still
honors him. His final residence was on the West coast.
The central figure in early Cleveland A.A. was Clarence
Snyder, the "Home Brewmeister" in the story in the
Big Book (pp. 297-303 in the 3rd edition). He was the
dynamo who pioneered the printed word -- pamphlets,
advertisements and newspaper articles. Irving Meyerson
was one of Clarence Snyder's train of "pigeons" or
sponcees. When Irving came to Indianapolis and introduced
himself to Dohr Sheerin, he simply said, "I am from
Cleveland and I've come here to help you get to work."
Dean L. Barnett, who made the first attempt at writing
a history of AA in Indiana, gives one account of how
Irving and Dohr got together. One copy of Dean's history
is in the New York AA Archives, and another copy, which
seems to be a slightly different version, is in the
Indianapolis AA Archives. In the New York version, Dean
says that in the Spring of 1940, in Indianapolis,
"... a man who had been sober on his own for almost
three years read the Liberty Magazine article on A.A.
and sent to New York for what information was available,
but experienced little reaction from what he received.
This man was the late, beloved Doherty S[heerin]. Later
in the same year, Irvin S. M[eyerson] of the Cleveland
group visited Mr. S[heerin] and took him and a Mr. Barr
to Evansville to meet Mr. Holmes. Hope was revived in
D[ohr]'s breast, he once told me, so that when he
returned to Indianapolis, he soon interested another
sufferer in the program on or about October 28, 1940,
the date now marked as the founding of the movement in
the capital city."
End of excerpt
- - -
[FROM THE MODERATOR: I should say that Dean Barnett
was not a very good researcher, and got a number of things
wrong in his history of how AA came to Indiana. Dean
says that Doherty Sheerin read the Liberty Magazine
article and wrote the New York AA headquarters, and that
somehow or other Irwin Meyerson ended up coming out to
Indianapolis from Cleveland. Dean would get the basic
story right, but tended to garble and confuse the details
and guess when he didn't know. Many present-day Indiana
AA historians think that it is more likely that Doherty
Sheerin came upon some of the things printed about AA in
the Cleveland newspaper, and wrote directly to Cleveland,
where Clarence Snyder asked Irwin to pass through
Indianapolis when he was traveling around selling venetian
blinds.
But Dean Barnett could have been right, and perhaps
Dohr did write New York, and New York sent Irwin to
Indianapolis.
At any rate, Irwin made the twelfth step call on Dohr
in Indianapolis, but immediately took him down to Evansville,
Indiana, where the AA leader J. D. Holmes had already set
up an AA group. It was J. D. who help Irwin show Dohr
how to set up an AA group, and the J. D. Holmes and Doherty
Sheerin then set up a highly organized campaign, where they
had soon set up AA meetings all over the state of Indiana.
I have been told, but have not been able to verify,
that AA in Louisville, Kentucky, was founded by contact
with Indianapolis, which is a straight drive north from
Louisville.
South Bend, Indiana, where I live, which is up in the
far north, is the only major part of Indiana where AA
was not founded (directly or indirectly) by the efforts
of J. D. Holmes (from Akron) and Doherty Sheerin (who
was twelfth stepped by Irwin Meyerson from Cleveland).
Glenn C.]
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++++Message 3869. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: How did Bill W. annual dinner
begin in New York?
From: Tom Hickcox . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/15/2006 4:02:00 PM
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At 19:31 11/13/2006 , James Blair wrote:
>Sasha wrote
>
>"This year I had a strong sense of being at a
>historical event, and I wondered what you all
>know about it."
>
>The December 1944 issue of the GV reported on the
>gathering of 1500 people, most of them drunks at the
>Hotel Commodore to celebrate the 10th anniversary
>of the founding of AA. Bill gave a report on the
>first 10 years of AA and a female member also shared.
>Fulton Oursler of the Reader's Digest was the
>non-AA speaker.
>
>(The date of the dinner is not mentioned).
The N.Y. World-Telegram article quoted by the N.Y.
Sun and included in the December 1944 Grapevine
article James Blair cited says "last night". I
would presume "last night" was in the recent past.
None of the responses to the initial query addresses
two of the three questions Sasha posed:
1. How did it come to be?
[And why late October/early November?]
2. Was it always conceived as a fundraiser?
3. Akron has its Founders' Day [Shouldn't Founders
be plural?] on the traditional founding date,
June 10th, annually.
Perhaps, tho, we are trying to read importance into
it that isn't there. 8^)
My wife, late of Long Island, has attended the N.Y.
dinner and experienced feelings similar to those
Sasha experienced.
Tommy in Baton Rouge
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++++Message 3870. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: "at" vs. "for" on Big Book p. 66
From: Tom Hickcox . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/17/2006 10:41:00 PM
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Peter Tippett
wrote:
In a Big Book Study while reading page 66 from my
3rd Edition I read, "We turned back to the list,
for it held the key to the future. We were prepared
to look AT IT from an entirely different angle."
"AT IT" or "FOR IT"?
I went and checked in my library and found the
following differences in the Eidtions and Printings:
Page edit./printing Date "at" or "for"
79 1st, 11th June 1947 "at"
66 2nd, 7th 1965 "for"
66 3rd, 10th 1981 "for"
66 3rd, 56th 1996 "at"
66 4th, 14th Sept., 2004 "at"
And on the spine of the 310 th printing of the 3rd
Edition it says, "Third Edition: New and Revised."
New and Revised?
I just have a curiosity as to any information
surrounding the "at" vs. "for" and the "New and
Revised."
__________________________
The Anonymous Press has a reproduction of the first
edition, first printing, which lists the changes
made from the 1st/1st to "modern text." This change,
whether accidental or purposeful, is not listed.
This comparison list is interesting to read, but be
aware that there is at least one typo in it. The
Big Book writers, for example, used the terms
ex-alcoholics and former alcoholics and these terms
were subsequently changed, but I digress . . .
I checked my library and four first editions, the
5th, 10th, 11th, and 13th printings all have "at."
I checked all 16 printings of the second edition
and they all have "for." They all also have "New
and Revised" on the spine, even the one that says
"Third Edition."
The first twenty printings of the third edition
have "for." The twenty-second printing has "at."
My modest library lacks a twenty-first printing,
so I can be no more definitive than that. Subsequent
third editions that I checked have "at." My one
fourth edition, a first printing, has "at." It
does not have "New and Revised" on the dust jacket
or cover.
I realize this doesn't answer the why question, but
I can't answer that.
Tommy H in Baton Rouge
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++++Message 3871. . . . . . . . . . . . Hospital records and the date of Dr.
Bob''s last drink?
From: Russ S . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/16/2006 10:56:00 AM
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Hello Fellow History Lovers,
Today, on the anniversary of the passing of our
beloved Dr. Bob I received an email saying he
"began his sobriety on or about June 16, 1935."
I know this issue has been raised in several
previous AAHL posts.
Has anyone ever tried to check hospital records in
Akron to see when Dr. Bob operated and who the
famous, um, person was, who had to have a "delicate
procedure?"
Love and Service,
Russ Stewart
Hooterville, NJ
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++++Message 3872. . . . . . . . . . . . Early Grapevine article and the word
"slip"
From: john.otis . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/18/2006 1:06:00 AM
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Hi. Back in the 60s I had a sponsor in Lancaster,
Calif. and he had one of the first Grapevines.
In it someone had written "Slipping From the Hands
Of God," and said that this is what we mean by the
word "slip."
Is there any way I can get a copy of this Grapevine?
Your site puts tears in my eyes when I see the
roots of this LIFE SAVING PROGRAM.
John Otis
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++++Message 3873. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: "at" vs. "for" on Big Book p. 66
From: Charlene C. . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/19/2006 4:47:00 PM
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Not sure what you are looking for but from a
grammatical point of view, the word "for" makes
zero sense in that particular sentence.
charlene
austin, tx.
Peter Tippett
wrote:
In a Big Book Study while reading page 66 from my
3rd Edition I read, "We turned back to the list,
for it held the key to the future. We were prepared
to look AT IT from an entirely different angle."
"AT IT" or "FOR IT"?
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++++Message 3875. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Hospital records and the date of
Dr. Bob''s last drink?
From: Glenn F. Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/19/2006 11:36:00 PM
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The Evolution of Alcoholics Anonymous
By Jim Burwell - The Agnostic
http://www.barefootsworld.net/aa-jb-evolution.html
Jim Burwell, one of the earliest AA members, says
in this little history of AA that he wrote at one
point, that Dr. Bob "dates his last drink June 15,
1935."
Jim preserves one version of some of the early AA
oral traditions. What you have to do in this kind
of historical research is look at all the various
oral tradition material, because usually what
happens is that each version gets some things right
but other things wrong. So the next thing you have
to do is look at written sources of information,
to see which oral tradition version best corresponds
to what can be corroborated from written documents.
Given the actual date of the AMA Convention in 1935,
Jim Burwell's memory may well have been more accurate
on this issue than the date which Bill W. and
Dr. Bob tried to reconstruct later on.
But the important thing to note is that not EVERYBODY
in early AA said that the date was June 10th, as
people today tend to falsely assume.
- - - - - - - -
In AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com,
"Russ S" wrote:
>
> Hello Fellow History Lovers,
>
> Today, on the anniversary of the passing of our
> beloved Dr. Bob I received an email saying he
> "began his sobriety on or about June 16, 1935."
>
> I know this issue has been raised in several
> previous AAHL posts.
>
> Has anyone ever tried to check hospital records in
> Akron to see when Dr. Bob operated and who the
> famous, um, person was, who had to have a "delicate
> procedure?"
>
> Love and Service,
>
> Russ Stewart
> Hooterville, NJ
>
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++++Message 3876. . . . . . . . . . . . Use of the word "slip" in early AA
From: Mitchell K. . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/20/2006 9:22:00 PM
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Not sure about the Grapevine article but the term slip
or slipper was used very early on. In Cleveland, ca
1941 (pre-Grapevine which was published 1944) in the
rules for hospitals there is a definition of a
"retrovert" or "slipper." That definition is "A man
or
woman who has been sponsored, and has attended at
least one A.A. meeting, then takes a drink, is
considered a retrovert, or slipper."
Responding to Message 3872 from "john.otis"
(suzkem at theriver.com)
Subject: Early Grapevine article and the word "slip"
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++++Message 3877. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Re: "at" vs. "for" on Big Book
p. 66
From: ny-aa@att.net . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/20/2006
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Looking at the grammar:
"We were prepared to look AT IT..."
The antecedent of "it" is "The Inventory."
Therefore, "We were prepared to look at the inventory..."
"We were prepared to look FOR IT..."
The antecedent of "it" is "the key."
Therefore, "We were prepared to look for the key..."
From a grammatical point of view, either FOR or AT
makes perfect sense in that sentence. The meanings are
different but both valid sentences. You need to figure
out what the groups approved and not what someone
thought was better. Or did Bill change it himself?
As was obvious in the flap over changed commas in the
original Fourth Edition version of "Dr Bob's Nightmare,"
some of the "editors" who try to "improve" the Big Book
have yet to master the English Language. Some changes
that "sounded right" to them changed the meanings in
subtle ways.
_________
Tom E
-------------------------------------------------
From: "jimlynch279"
(jimlynch279 at yahoo.com)
I think to say the sentence with "for" makes no
grammatical sense is not accurate.
If the phrase is "look FOR it from an entirely
different angle," the antecedent of the pronoun "it"
is "the key", something that we need, must find and
will search for by looking from a different angle.
If the phrase is "look AT it from an entirely
different angle.", the antecedent of the pronoun "it"
is "the list," something that we have available for
review and will gain more infomation from if we view
it from a different angle.
Jim L
xpd in Pittsburgh
-------------- Original message -----------------
From: "Charlene C."
> Not sure what you are looking for but from a
> grammatical point of view, the word "for" makes
> zero sense in that particular sentence.
> charlene
> austin, tx.
>
> Peter Tippett wrote: -------------->
> In a Big Book Study while reading page 66 from my
> 3rd Edition I read, "We turned back to the list,
> for it held the key to the future. We were prepared
> to look AT IT from an entirely different angle."
>
> "AT IT" or "FOR IT"?
>
-------------------------------------------------
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++++Message 3878. . . . . . . . . . . . Ebby''s Philadelphia Adventure
From: Shakey1aa@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 11/19/2006 7:39:00 PM
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Philadelphia and Ebby (Edwin Throckmorton Thacher)
As Mel B writes in his book "Ebby": on June 1940
Ebby decided to come to Philadelphia. He arrived at
10 A.M and was drunk by noon. He mentions that the
Philadelphia mother group was not too keen to help
a New York AA due to some rivalry between the cities.
He states they got him situated at P.G.H.(Philadelphia
General Hospital).
Mel states that this recollection was from a 1954
interview and says the Philadelphia Group, which
numbered 75, may not have been too keen to help
someone who didn't want it. Ebby got out and lived
and worked at a mission similar to the Salvation Army
for three weeks. He then worked as a porter at a
Philadelphia hospital in the cancer laboratory for
three months.
The September 1940 Philadelphia meeting list does not
show his name. With our involvement in World War Two,
a 46-year-old Ebby did not have to worry about the
draft and with the shortage of able bodied workers
he secured employment with the US Navy as an associate
inspector of parts.
He arrives on the Philadelphia meeting list dated
November 1941 as Edw. Thatcher with an address of
Lankenau Hospital. Also sharing that address was a
Mr. Art O'C.
Ebby went in and out and had no trouble finding jobs
crating trucks to ship overseas and at Westinghouse
at the steam plant division in South Philadelphia.
He also worked for the Red Cross packing depot and
worked at the AA Clubhouse at 219 S. 36th Street
near the University of Pennsylvania as an Assistant
Club Steward (1943).
Our June 1, 1942 meeting list has him at 242 S. 17th
Street in Philadelphia with a phone number of Kin 9881.
The same meeting list has Mr. William H. with the
same address and phone number. It is interesting
to note that this address is close to the offices
of Dr. A. Weise Hammer (see AA Comes of Age pg. 190
and Grapevine May 1957). His wife Helen overheard
Jimmy B. in a bookstore trying to sell the Big Book
and with a Mrs. (Dr.) Dudley Saul (of the Saul Clinic)
introduced him to their husbands. They were great
friends to A.A. and introduced us to Judge Curtis
Bok, of the Philadelphia Municipal Court and Curtis
Publishing, the owner of the Saturday Evening Post.
(Read 3/1/1941 Saturday Evening Post article
"Alcoholics Anonymous" by Jack Alexander.)
Dr. Hammer was at 323 S. 17th Street and his
alcoholic nephew, Mr. Charles A. D. (Dan) M. lived
at 237 S 18th Street.
Ed F., the founder of the Northeast Clubhouse, in
a tape recorded for the Archives of the Southeastern
Pennsylvania Intergroup Association recalled an
Ebby anecdote.
He was at the 36th Street clubhouse with his sponsor
George S. (the first open AA meeting in Philadelphia
was at his home). He related that he was the first
speaker that evening at the closed A.A. meeting and,
"after I finished talking I get back in the room
and George S. says Ann G. is having a problem. Now,
she is one of the few women we have in A.A. at the
time. She lived at 23rd and Spruce in a third floor
apartment. Let's go down and see if we can help
her. So we jump in my car and Ebby was just going to
close the meeting. So we went down to 23rd and Spruce
and we're walking up the steps and I'm right in
front of George. We get up to the third floor and
there's a pig-tail light hanging from the ceiling
of the long hall. And here's our friend Ann G.
walking down the hall with a little mandarin coat
on and a mandarin hat and I swear all I can see was
bare legs. So I pointed to her for George and he
coughed or said something and she turned around and
had a bikini on. So we came up to the top of the stairs
and Ann says 'Come on into the front room, the living
room.' So we walk into the living room and I started
to sit on the couch and she says 'No, no, no. You
don't do that.' We sit on the pillows. So she took
and put out three pillows out on the floor and it so
happens I was sitting on the pillow that looked right
down the hallway. And as we're talking, and she
had a few drinks on board, and as we're still
talking I see this man and women coming down the
hall all the way to the other end door, open the
door and walk in. The man had two big what looked
like shopping bags in his hand. They looked very
familiar. I'm looking at them from the back. So I
say to Ann, 'Where's the bathroom?' She says,
'It's the third door on the right.' So I walk down
the hall right past the third door to the end door
that had just been opened and closed. I open the
door and I walk in and there's our friend Ebby
and Emily his girlfriend sitting at the table each
with a quart of beer. I said, 'Well what's the beer?'
He said, 'Well, it's all right to drink between
meetings.'"
Yours in Service,
Shakey Mike Gwirtz
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