Bill Meets Henrietta Seiberling

Reverend Tunks provided Bill with numbers of ten Oxford Group members to which Bill risked his then-precious nickels to no avail, save one contact, Norman Sheppard, who knew about Henrietta Seiberling’s efforts to help a doctor get off the hooch. Her very name made Bill wax diffident.

He realized she was a member of the prodigious Seiberling Rubber Company family; such a millionaire socialite would doubtless take a dim view on the prospect of helping some unknown New York drunk find another drunk—Bill left the telephone booth and dejectedly returned to his room. But in profound desperation he finally made the call (Note that was call #12!).

Only weeks before, Dr. Bob Smith had admitted to the Akron Oxford Group that he was a secret drinker and would they pray for him; Henrietta believed that Bob’s answer would come through regular prayer. So, when a phone call came from a rum hound from New York who needed another drunk to keep him sober she thought to herself: “This is really manna from heaven.” She replied: “You come right out here.”

One must wonder whether Bill invested his limited funds on a taxi ride, or walked those several hilly miles. (A speaker at the 2008 Founder’s Day believes he walked, so the next day he planned to count the exact number of steps that Bill would have taken; then report back to us the next year, but I have never heard the report.).

Henrietta did arrange for the two alcoholics to meet for supper at the gatehouse of the Stan Hywet Mansion where she and her teenage children were then residing. This was Sunday Evening, May 12, 1935. Dr. Bob Smith, his wife Ann, and 17 year old son, Bob, arrived at about five o’clock, but Dr. Bob’s severe hangover would not allow him to partake of the supper.

Excerpt from Pre-AA History