The Oxford Group Connection
this article is outdated please see Dickb I have received
quite a few private email requests for more info on the Oxford Group. The following
article was written by my sponsor, Ray R. (8/25/59), and edited and
published in a limited fashion by myself. Before going to print, it was
sent to New York and checked for accuracy. Ol' sponce is not an electronic
sort of duck, (though I've tried!), so you can't email him. But his voice
number is attached to the end of the article for any who care to
communicate. Naturally, this has all been cleared by him first, and he
would welcome any contact. I spent the morning
reformatting my Word.doc to ascii, so hopefully it'll come out OK,
however, if anyone would like the original in Word for Windows 6.0, email
me and I'll be happy to attach it to an individual reply. Permission to
reprint for the benefit of AA or it's individual members has been granted
at large, so long as the text of the doc is not altered in any way. So, with Best
Regards from the Old Man, and sore fingers from me, here `tis. THE OXFORD GROUP CONNECTIONThis article is an
effort to put together in sequence the various events that took place in
the years from 1908 to 1935 which made possible the meeting in Akron, Ohio
between the AA founders, Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson, and which resulted
in the subsequent birth of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is an assemblage of
facts gleaned from the following publications: Alcoholics Anonymous AA Comes of Age Pass It On Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers Not God (by Ernest Kurtz) For Sinners Only (by A.J. Russell) On the Tail of a Comet (by Garth Lean) Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous (by Dick B.) The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous (by Dick B.) Do you know any of
these names? Frank Buchman--Sam Shoemaker-- Rowland Hazard--Jim
Newton--Eleanor Forde--Ebby Thatcher--Shepard Cornell--Henrietta
Seiberling--Rev. Walter Tunks--Norman Shepherd-- Russell Firestone--T.
Henry & Clarace Williams?? All of these people were instrumental in a
scenario that contributed to making possible that historic meeting at the
Gate House of the Seiberling Estate in Akron that became the birthplace of
Alcoholics Anonymous. If it were not for these people, that meeting could
never have taken place, and the fellowship to which we all owe our lives
today might never have been born. Where did the steps originate? In AA
Comes of Age, (p.39), Bill wrote: Early AA got it's ideas of
self-examination, acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for
harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Groups and
directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and nowhere
else.(1) We prepare to start this history with the story of Frank
Buchman, the founder of the Oxford Group. You will see as we trace the
paths of Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson in the years before they met, that the
Oxford Group and the aforementioned cast of characters played a part in
every twist and turn of the path that led Bill Wilson to Akron. (1) See also
Language of the Heart, p.298
FRANK
BUCHMAN AND THE OXFORD GROUP Who were the Oxford
Group (2)? In 1908, a YMCA secretary named Frank Buchman had a spiritual
transformation that changed his life (3). Upon graduating in June of that year,
he started a streetside church in Philadelphia (Church of the Good
Shepherd) with a donation of seventeen dollars. The church flourished, and
he started a hospice
for young men which spread to other cities, and then he started a
settlement house project. Frank had a violent argument with his trustee
committee because they cut the
budget and the food allotment. He resigned and went to Europe, ending up
at a large religious convention in Keswick, England. The spiritual transformation
occurred when he heard a woman speaker talk simply about the cross of
Christ. He felt the chasm separating him from Christ, and a feeling of a
will to surrender. He
went back to his house and wrote these words to each of his six trustees
in Philadelphia: My dear friend. I have nursed ill feelings against
you. I am sorry. Will you
forgive me? Sincerely, Frank. Feeling an urge to share this
experience, he went to nearby Oxford University and formed an evangelical
group there among the student
leaders and athletes. Later the movement
spread, and groups formed over the next twenty years in England, Scotland,
Holland, India, South Africa, China, Egypt, Switzerland, and North and South America.
Many of the basic things they did have carried over directly into our
program. They practiced absolute surrender, guidance by the Holy Spirit, sharing bringing
about true fellowship, life changing, faith and prayer. They aimed for
absolute standards of Love, Purity, Honesty, and Unselfishness, which were
an integral part of the
first AA programs in Akron and Cleveland and New York. Above all the group
was a fellowship: A First Century Christian Fellowship. They carried the message
aggressively to others. They met in churches, universities, and homes. The Oxford Group and
their principles were carried to the United States so that in both New
York City and Akron, Ohio an Oxford Group was in place and functioning when
Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith hit their respective bottoms. These two
groups would befriend and teach their principles to our co-founders before they ever met, and
then go on to host the fledgling groups of newly dry and nameless drunks
as they came together. Here is how the
Oxford Group came to the United States. One early member at Oxford, Ken
Twitchell, had attended Princeton University and had a brother in New York City who
was a mainstay in the Calvary Episcopal Church. This becomes one of
several amazing coincidences. In 1918 during his travels, Frank Buchman met a young
YMCA worker, Sam Shoemaker, in China and converted him to the Oxford Group
principles. Years later, Sam became the minister of that Calvary Church in
New York, and that same church became the titular headquarters for the
Oxford Group in the United States. (The name was changed in 1928 from A First
Century Christian Fellowship to the Oxford Group.) The groups'
popularity peaked during this period. There were 10,000 people at one
meeting at Stockbridge in the Berkshire Mountains. Business teams began to have their
house parties in various cities (4). In 1931 in England,
a London newspaper editor, A. J. Russell, attended an Oxford Group meeting
with the intention of exposing the group. But he wrote, I came as an observer and
became a convert! (Russell later edited God Calling,
which may have found it's way into material used by the early AAs.) Some 9
years later, in 1940, Richmond
Walker of the Quincy, Mass. group wrote the 24-hour book still used by us
today. This was modeled after Russell's God Calling but was
slanted away from all
spiritual to more of a 24-hour not drinking theme. Russell's book,
For Sinners Only, described his journey from prodigal son to
the Oxford Group and became a best
seller in the early 1930s in England and the United States, and was
printed in eight languages. One chapter of the
book was devoted to Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City and it's
rector, Sam Shoemaker. Calvary Church became the virtual American
headquarters for the Oxford Group during the 1930s. And it was here, (in
the church's mission), that Bill Wilson's sponsor, Ebby Thatcher, was
living at the time of Bill's
last drunk. (2) See Pass
It On, p.130 (3) See also
Life Changers by Harold Begbie (Mills and Boon) (4) For further
details of the Oxford Group in the U.S., see Pass It On,
p.127-32; p.168-74 AA Comes of Age, p.39 HOW THE MESSAGE CAME TO BILLIn 1932 and 1933, a
man named Rowland Hazard, son of wealthy Rhode Island mill owners and a
State Senator, had become a hopeless alcoholic, and in his quest for help had sought
out the world famous psychiatrist, Carl Jung. Jung told him there was no
hope for him there, and to go home and possibly find a conversion through some
religious group. He did this in the Oxford Group in the United States and
became sober. They taught him certain principles that he applied to his
life. This story is
documented in our Big Book. In 1934, Ebby
Thatcher, childhood friend of Bill Wilson's, was about to be locked up as
a chronic drunk in Bennington, Vermont. He was visited by three men from
an Oxford Group; Shep Cornell, Rowland Hazard, and Cebra Graves. (A
precursor to ourTwelve Step work!) They later sent Rowland Hazard back
alone to see Ebby. He acted as a sort of sponsor and told his story. He
taught Ebby the precepts he hadlearned from the Oxford Group. Later, as we
know, in December of that year, Ebby had his chance to relay these
precepts to Bill Wilson. Here they are, transcribed from a tape of one of
Bill's AA talks: We admitted we were licked. We got honest with ourselves. We talked it over with another person. We made amends to those we had harmed. We tried to carry this message to others
with no thought of reward. We prayed to whatever God we thought there
was (We also have Bill's handwritten copy of
the above.) Now we begin to see
the emerging pattern of events in Akron and in the New York area in the
ten year period before the start of AA. We see how, through the machinery of the
Oxford Group and its key leaders, Frank Buchman and Sam Shoemaker, events
conspired to make possible this meeting between Bob and Bill in Akron in 1935. Shep,
Cebra, and Rowland were all three Oxford Group members. They were part of
the business teams which were working around the country in various cities. In
November of 1934, Ebby surrendered his life to God at the Calvary
Episcopal Church mission run by Sam Shoemaker. (Sam had met Frank Buchman in China in
1918, and by 1934 was regarded as a major leader of the Oxford Group
movement in the United States and was hosting their headquarters.) Ebby is staying at
his mission. Bill W. shows up there drunk looking for Ebby, can't find
him, and goes to Towns Hospital. Bill Duval recalls
in a letter, Bill W. told us at the mission that he had heard that
Ebby, on the previous Sunday at the Calvary Church, had witnessed that
with the help of God he had
been sober a number of months. Bill said that if Ebby could get help
here, then he (Bill) needed help, and he could get it at the mission,
also. Bill looked prosperous
compared to our usual mission customers, (actually, he was wearing a
Brooks Brother's suit purchased at a rummage sale for $5.00!), so we agreed that he go to
Towns Hospital where Ebby and others of the group could talk to him. After his spiritual
experience at Towns, Bill immediately made a decision to become very
active in Oxford Group work, and to try to bring other alcoholics from Towns to the group.
He visited the mission Oxford Group meetings and the hospital daily for
four or five months, right up to the time of the Akron trip. No one stayed sober. Bill W. and the Oxford Group Work(Jim
Newton enters the scene) Rowland Hazard, who
rescued Ebby in August 1934, had a thorough indoctrination in Oxford Group
teachings and he passed many of these along to Ebby and Bill W. Soon after his
release from Towns Hospital at the end of 1934, Bill and the rest of the
alcoholic contingent of the Oxford Group began gathering at Stewart's Cafeteria in New
York following their regular meeting. Shep Cornell, then a member of the
Oxford Group business team that included Rowland, Sam Shoemaker, and Hanford
Twitchell, was also a recovering alkie. Lois Wilson talked of regular
attendance at the Oxford Group meetings with Bill, Shep, and Ebby. James Houck, a
nonalcoholic Oxford Group member in Frederick, Maryland, stated that Bill
W. went to many Oxford Group meetings at the Francis Scott Key Hotel in Frederick and always
centered on alcohol. He was obsessed with the idea of carrying the
message. The conclusion is that Bill had a wide acquaintance in Oxford Group circles, not
just confined to Sam and Calvary House. Bill told Houck that he worked on
50 drunks in the first 6 months with no success. Calvary House was Sam's residence and
contained an Oxford Group bookstore. Calvary Mission was at another
location in the gas house district. Thousands of people passed through the mission
where they offered lodging, free meals, and Oxford Group meetings every
night. Tex Francisco was its superintendent in 1934 when Bill showed up there. Now enters the man
most certainly responsible for the fateful Akron meetings between Bill and
Dr. Bob. Jim Newton was surely the sole catalyst that ordained the Oxford Group would
be in place in Akron, Ohio when Bill showed up there in 1935. This amazing
string of circumstances plays out as follows: Jim, at age 20, was
a luggage salesman in New York who had come upon an Oxford Group meeting
by accident (actually, he was looking for fun and games that night!) in
Massachusetts in 1923 when he was 18 years old. He was converted at the
party, got on his knees and gave the direction of his life to God at that
time. He met a lady named
Eleanor Forde who greatly influenced his thinking about the movement. (He
and Eleanor were to meet and marry 20 years later in 1943.) (endnote1) Several twists and
turns of fate placed Jim Newton in Akron, Ohio and installed our next cast
of characters. These were both Oxford Group members and regular attendees at Oxford
Group meetings. We will be talking about the intertwined relations of
Henrietta Seiberling, Dr. Walter Tunks, Harvey and Russell Firestone, Sam Shoemaker, Frank
Buchman, T. Henry and Clarace Williams, and Anne and Dr. Bob Smith. Jim Newton went to
Ft. Myers, Florida in 1926, at age 21, to visit his father,and they bought
a 35 acre tract of land across the road from the Thomas Edison estate(5). Jim
Newton became as an adopted son to Mr. and Mrs. Edison, and often acted as
host and toastmaster at Edison's famous birthday parties which were attended by Henry
Ford, Harvey Firestone, and many world renowned business leaders and
public figures. Here begins another
key circumstance to set the stage in Akron, Ohio. Harvey Firestone, Sr.,
offered Jim a job as secretary to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1926, and
moved him to Akron, Ohio putting him in residence at the Portage Country
Club adjacent to the Firestone Estate(6) Jim worked for Firestone eleven
years and was being groomed as president of the company when he resigned
and went full time with the Oxford Groups. Firestone's clergyman was Rev. Walter Tunks.
Jim joined Tunks' church and became active in raising funds for their
birthday committee. Jim had been in New
York for the Jack Dempsey vs Gene Tunney fight. While there he confessed
to Frank Buchman that his life was in turmoil and he was about to take a
geographical cure. Buchman sent him to meet Sam Shoemaker at
the Calvary Church and he made an Oxford Group confession to Sam and was
led to join one of the Oxford
Group business teams. These were groups of
important men who made attempts to convert others to the Oxford Group
method of spirituality. Jim frequently met with the aforementioned Shep Cornell and
Rowland Hazard. He met T. Henry and Clarace Williams, husband and wife
Oxford Group members from Akron and members of Walter Tunks' church. The business
team put on house parties in various cities at the finest hotels and
clubs. In January of 1933, Frank Buchman, leading a team of thirty men and women, descended on
Akron for the first time to give testimonials at the Mayflower Hotel and
in Akron churches, and initiate the townspeople in the experiences of the Oxford Group.
Here we can clearly see input from Jim Newton's parties with Firestone and
Tunks' Episcopal Church group to influence the choice of Akron as the site of this
endeavor, rather than some other city. Had Jim not already been a business
team member and in place in Akron, it is very unlikely that Buchman would ever have
chosen this small, rather unknown city as a place to pursue his
evangelistic efforts. Jim was the spokesman who introduced Buchman at all
the affairs that week in
Akron. Now our cast of
characters is nearly complete and in place. Still to appear on the scene,
however, are Henrietta Seiberling, Anne and Bob Smith, and T. Henry and Clarace Williams. When Jim first
arrived in Akron he had been welcomed into the Firestone family, and had
become fast friends with a son, Russell (Bud) Firestone. Bud had a very bad drinking problem
and had already been sent to several hospitals to no avail. Jim went with
Bud to still another drying-out place, on the Hudson River in New York, and stayed
through the entire 30 day program. Then he took Bud to an Episcopal
Conference in Denver to which the Oxford Group people had been invited. On the train East
again after the party, he was able to introduce Bud to his old Oxford
Group minister, Sam Shoemaker. Alone with Sam, Bud surrendered his life to God in a private car
on the train. His life changed, and his family situation and marriage were
saved. Now Akron was
the place where AA was to be founded. Jim Newton had helped bring to the
city the Oxford Group message of his alcoholic friend, Bud Firestone. The
message led to Bud's miraculous recovery which lasted for a
time. The message and the recovery were broadcast to an interested
community by a grateful father,
Harvey Firestone, Sr., and by widespread press accounts.(7) Clarace Williams was
there, and joined the Oxford Group along with T. Henry Williams, and began
regularly attending the meetings. About the same time, a lady named Henrietta
Seiberling, the wife of John Seiberling of the Seiberling Tire and Rubber
Company, found herself with personal and marital problems, and separated from her husband.
She turned to the Oxford Group and attended the first meetings at the
Mayflower Hotel. She went with a woman named Anne Smith, the wife of a well-known Akron
surgeon who was in deep trouble with his drinking. The progenitors now
assume their roles. A kindly and missionary-oriented couple, the Williams,
had been impressed with the Oxford Group message, and had a home to offer for a
meeting place. A gifted and compassionate lady named Henrietta Seiberling,
who had mastered some of the Oxford group principles, had her eye on using the
biblical principles to help her good friend, Dr. Bob Smith, with his
drinking problem. Add to this mix the efforts of his wife Anne, who
assembled books and spiritual
readings and principles from the Bible, the Oxford Group, and various
other Christian writings, all the while praying for a solution to her
husband's seemingly hopeless
drinking problem. The talented and very alcoholic surgeon became the focus
of all these efforts. He did a lot of spiritual reading, attended a lot of meetings, but
remained drunk. 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. R.R. IN AN ATTEMPT TO PAY BACK JUST A LITTLE... This article was
written in an attempt to preserve and to pass on the accurate
history of the beginnings of AA, before the sands of time obscure them
completely as they have a habit of
doing so well. It was forwarded to
New York and reviewed for accuracy before going to press. However, if you
have any questions or comments, or would like permission to reprint, I would be
delighted to hear from you. Feel free to call,
or better yet, visit me at my home group. Ray R. The Find Yourself
Group 10891 102nd Av. N. Seminole, Fl. 34648 (813) 398-4499 END
OF ARTICLE Hope
you found this interesting and useful. With
Love and Gratitude for the Fellowship of AA, Bill
C. --- onegun@ix.netcom.com |