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A artifact more than just furniture Table where Alcoholics Anonymous co-founders created 12-step program back in West Akron home By Jim Carney Beacon Journal staff writer A splash of light shines on a dark mahogany table in the dining room of an unassuming house on Ardmore Avenue in Akron. The table looks like any other table, but it is not. It is a piece of the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. And because of that, the simple table holds deep spiritual meaning for millions of people around the world. ``If you find yourself in a condition where your life has been robbed of hope'' and then ``by the grace of God'' you are able to turn your life around, you become grateful to be alive, said the Rev. Samuel Ciccolini, executive director of Interval Brotherhood Home, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Coventry Township. And so, Ciccolini said, recovering people view Akron as being ``like Bethlehem to Christians.'' The table -- where AA founders sat and discussed the concepts that would become AA in 1935 -- is now located inside what is called Dr. Bob's Home at 755 Ardmore Ave. Robert Smith, known as Dr. Bob, was a co-founder of AA. The table is part of a collection of material that his daughter -- Sue Smith Windows -- sold or donated to the home shortly before her death in February. The home is one of three places containing AA artifacts. Other items are displayed at the archives at the Akron AA office on North Main Street. And in 1999, Dr. Bob's daughter sold other items and papers to Brown University in Rhode Island for $100,000. While local AA members would like to have kept some of those things in Akron, they are grateful for items they do have -- like the table. Because, in a spiritual sense, some 2 million people worldwide have sat around that table. It provides a link not only to the founding of AA here, but to all people in other 12-step recovery programs as well. ``God put his hand on this area with two seemingly hopeless drunks in 1935 and offered the world the greatest miracle for recovery that has ever been known to mankind,'' said Ciccolini, also known as Father Sam. Not only did its founders sit at that table developing the principles of AA, but it also is where the personal stories that appeared in the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous -- what is referred to as the Big Book -- were edited and typed. The table, along with spiritual books and other items related to the early days of the movement, are seen as touchstones that must be preserved so that what happened in Akron and changed so many lives will never be forgotten. AA was founded June 10, 1935, by Smith, a physician, and Bill W. -- New York stockbroker Bill Wilson. Smith died in 1950 and Wilson died in 1971. ``Bill W. felt there was a need to preserve our history so that myth did not prevail over fact,'' said Akron AA archivist Gail L., who maintains archives at the Akron office. ``There are archivists from around the world who are tracking the story of how AA came to their part of the world and how it grew,'' she said. Once again this year, thousands of AA members from around the world will visit Akron June 7-9 to celebrate the founding of AA. Last year, nearly 11,000 people attended Founders Day ceremonies at the University of Akron. And this year, many of those will again visit Dr. Bob's Home and the AA archives on North Main Street when they are here. Smith's furniture and other artifacts had been in storage in an extra bedroom inside Windows' York Street home in North Akron for years. About six weeks before her death of congestive heart failure, the deal was made to sell some items and donate others to Dr. Bob's Home, a nonprofit group that runs the house where the Smith family lived in the Highland Square area of Akron. ``She wanted the furniture to go to the house,'' said Ginny Galbraith, Windows' daughter-in-law. The items that are now on display at the home include Dr. Bob's medical bag, other pieces of furniture and two worn chairs, where Dr. Bob and his wife, Anne, would sit in the evening and talk and study. Also donated to the home recently by Windows is a walking stick that the Dublin, Ireland, AA group gave to Dr. Bob. The collection includes the table where Windows herself typed the personal stories that appeared in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Anne Smith edited the stories and Sue Smith -- a teen at the time -- typed them. The AA Big Book is now in its fourth printing. About 21 million copies have been distributed worldwide since 1939. Many artifacts The collection at the Ardmore home is just the latest group of Dr. Bob archives to be preserved for history. While the table is in Akron, the black-handled aluminum coffee pot used by Smith and Wilson in the kitchen of the Ardmore home during the founding days of AA -- where thousands of cups of coffee were consumed -- is among the 5,000 items sold to Brown University for $100,000. Brown also got hundreds of manuscripts and photographs, along with items such as Smith's Social Security card and his proctological examining instruments -- even a 1948 Cleveland Indians World Series baseball signed by players, including a player who was an AA member. According to Brown University, manuscripts include notes of Anne Smith, who wrote down principles that became the 12 steps of AA. ``It is a wonderful collection,'' said Dr. David Lewis, a professor of medicine and community health at Brown who was director of the Brown Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at the time of the purchase of the Smith collection. He said Windows made the initial contact with Brown. While he said he has heard from some Akron people who were not pleased that the items were sold to Brown, he has also heard from many others who are happy that Brown will preserve them for all time. The school has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to restore and preserve the items, Lewis said. The Akron AA office on North Main Street, meanwhile, includes several first editions of the Big Book and many other publications, documents and photographs, as well as the King School bell, which was used to call to order the first AA meeting held at Akron's King School. Gail L. said she is happy that Dr. Bob's Home received the Smith items before Windows died and said it would have been good to find a way to keep the items sold to Brown in Akron. But she said she knows there is still considerable historical AA material in the area in shoe boxes and attics that she would love to have. A few times a year someone donates something, she said. ``But we have no money and we don't buy things.'' To her, AA artifacts are ``spiritual property.'' Galbraith, Windows' daughter-in-law, said it is a shame that more of the items were not kept here. She said Windows would have preferred that the items sold to Brown had stayed in Akron -- but no one came forward willing to purchase them. ``You couldn't let it go down the drain,'' she said.
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