Dr. Bob’s House – A History Workshop – Part 3 of 3 – Sandy B.

All right. Good morning, everyone. How you doing? I can't hear you. Come on. All right, that's more the old-timey spirit. My name is Don Fusick and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is January 5th, 1979. I'm a member of the Tuesday Night Step Group and I was privileged to serve as the Area Archives Chair for Area 15 back in 2005 and just finished out serving as a delegate on panel 63 a year ago, actually more than a year ago now. A year or a year go, whatever. It's kind of like all y'all, right? Does everybody, you get enough to eat? I can't hear you. Come on. Let's liven up a little. Alright. I also have the privilege of being your emcee for today. And most of all, I want to thank you all for coming and helping us to help our beloved Dr. Bob and Ann Smith come alive. And we got some photographs up here of these elder statesmen here and stuff and people that were the spiritual sponsors of Bill and also were very instrumental in early time J.A. We've got Emmett Fox down here, and we've got Sam Shoemaker who was responsible for all 12 steps according to Bill and Bob. We've Got the Dr. Bob Benefit here from last year. And we've Got Father Ed Dowling, a young pitcher. He was a catcher, by the way. Bill was an all-star left-handed pitcher, so they met off pretty good. And I can't remember who's the last guy on the end here. Oh, that's the big picture with all types of old-time stuff. All right. Can we open this workshop with a moment of silence, followed by a serenity prayer for those who choose to join us? God, grant me the serenITY to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. All right. We have an incredible day planned for you. Are you willing? Are you ready? All right, fasten your seatbelts because it's going to be a great time. If you haven't already had the breakfast, please help yourself. It's goingto be open until 1030. If you have already eaten, that's great. The bathrooms are in the breezeway over here. And by the way, smoking is only permitted outside in the approved smoking area, which is past the bathrooms. And if you keep going out to the road, no, no. Just joking. You know, we're not a glum lot, so we're going to have a great time. Please, if you have a cell phone, beeper, pager, whatever you got, please put it to silence. If you're expecting a liver transplant, we'll understand. My brother had two. But please, otherwise. Also, how many people have index cards on your tables? You see those there? All right. Exactly. You know what they're for? We're goingto have an old-timer's ask it basket. Anything you've ever wanted to know about old-time AA, our old-timers are going to share with you exactly what happened because they know everything, right? Please write down your question for the panel, and we'll collect those around lunchtime. Also, we're privileged to have Vision Audio here, Jimmy and Maria back in the back there. Let's thank them for coming out. Please see them. They are recording this whole great day, and please see them if you'd like a copy. Please take it home and share it with others because we need to keep this all-time AA message alive. How does that sound? Isn't that what we should be doing? Absolutely. Of those who came and really tried, how many got sober at once? 50%. Of those Who really tried after that, 75%. And what happened to the remainder? Even the remainder showed improvement. 100% improvement with this program, not some other program, but old-time AA. It's amazing. We also have these limited edition lapel pins. They're up here for Dr. Bob, supporting Dr. Bobs up here at the table. Please, they're only $5. 100%, the $5 goes straight to Dr. Bob's house, and it's a wonderful thing. You know, the more we can support Dr. Bobs, he'll be there for generations after us rather than crumbling into a bunch of, you know, sawdust and not being there and like, hey, I understood Dr. Bops was here. You know? It's a little bit different now. It's not like it was when Gail went by there and was doing a tour and the hippies in there were throwing beer cans at the buses. It was great. So thank God we rescued the place. All right. We also have great raffle prizes. Please see John up here. John, he's got the tickets, and we've got a great basket of stuff from Dr. Bob's house for you. We also have some fantastic quotes by Cecilia. We want to thank Cecilia for that donation. That's awesome. That's something you don't see every day, and we got a few sets of Sandy B. Well, you know who Sandy B is, his books, and also the Bill W., I guess, a copy of the movie and stuff. So it's all up here, make sure you get a chance. I know. How many people won on the Powerball? All right, your luck is still here. Come on and join in. How do you like that, huh? We absolutely insist upon having fun, as you've figured out by now. If you haven't, stick around. It'll come. Tickets are $1, $6 for $5. And that's pretty much it. I want to make sure I absolutely have to ask you this question. Are you willing to have a great time? All right. Let's show it. Let's welcome Gail LaCroix here. He's going to come on up and do a great show. And we're going to have a great time. Come on up, have a good time. If you need anything, let us know. Thanks. Some of you, how many were here last year? Yeah, that's why you came back. Was that a great day? It was a great way to start the day. It was such a great thing. We brought back old AA. I felt it. I've carried it with me for a whole year. And now I'm back to the well again to fill up. So thank you so much. Thank you for your support. What I'm going to do this morning, and I want to thank the Ryans. You got some real soldiers here. They have been, yes, you do. Yes, you did. So on behalf of Dr. Bob's home, on behalf of a very hardworking board in Akron, we do all the work there ourselves, mainly the board. We want to thank the Ryans. We wantto thank Don and we want to thank each of you because we can't do it without you. You know, when Bill died, the home was intact. Lois could live there with royalties coming in and not that they didn't have a job to do. We started from scratch. We started from a home that, and I'm going to give you the history of what it was like, what happened, and what it's like today, and a little bit of my part in it. But now it's our home, and this is a part of it. And when you come to events like this or in any way help support it, we really appreciate you because we're operating on a string. But I want to show you what we've done with a lot of hard work today. And I got a few surprises for you. Somebody might have to keep time for me because I want make sure I get that little surprise in. If somebody's looking at the clock, that would be great. Okay. I think the little thing on the bottom came loose. Can you see it? It seems a little... Can you see it well enough or do we need to darken the lights a little bit dark Jack, Jack. Okay, we'll start. Can you hear me? It's not quite as loud as the other one, but I'm a recovering school teacher, so I'll try to use my playground voice. all right you're we're 100 years old we're actually we're probably going towards 101 but I want you to know that both homes we have a 855 and 859 both homes are 100 years old so you can imagine the challenge that we have to now bring these houses up to safety codes and and everything so that we can keep maintaining them Both co-founders came from the state of Vermont So we're starting to tell that story In the attic now Where we have things from Vermont Which you'll see in a little bit That's the town of St. Johnsbury Bill's from East Dorset Bob's from St. John'sbury And Cute little sleepy town Uh-huh. Yeah, Dr. Bob grew up in St. Johnsbury in this home that you're going to see here. I haven't been there. Have any of you been there? Anybody been to St. Johnsbury? Great. And you probably visited the home. You can visit his home there as well. Actually, that's what his bedroom looked like. I can hear the wows. I always love that. There's things we do for the home, and I'll show you some of those. And when we put up a new display and somebody walks in and says, wow, you'll see a big smile on my face. I am on the board there now and do the curating. That's Dr. Bob's father, Walter, who was just everything in St. Johnsbury. He was like the judge and Sunday school teacher and on the state legislature. And I always thought of Dr. Bob being like this only child. What a hard act he would have been to follow. This guy was everything in St. Johnsbury, and there's Susie. Susie was Dr. Bob's mother, and you've not ever probably seen a picture of her, have you? No, this is the only existing picture, and I have somebody working on it that needs to be photoshopped, but I put it in so that you could see her. Now, Susie must have been very rigid. She's like church lady, very strict, turned Dr. Robb off totally from church, swore he'd never go to church again. And they put him to bed at 5 o'clock. Can you imagine putting an alcoholic kid to bed at 5 O'clock? So, you know what Dr. Bob did. He snuck out the window every night and he never got caught. And, you Know, I think that's where he got the cat and mouse game. He was sneaking from Ann all the time. And this was a game Bob played for a long time. And I think it went right back to the days when his mother... Actually, Ann Smith blamed Dr. Bobs drinking on Susie. so very cold woman and the sad thing is Walter who totally loved the son who kept bailing Dr. Bob out all the time he never lived to see Bob get sober that always makes me sad when I tell this part of the story it was Susie that lived to See Dr. Bob Get Sober and so there you have seen a picture of Dr.Bob in his teen years this is where the love of cars comes in if you know Smitty's. How many of you met Smitty? You mean Smitty, Sue? They were still alive when I came in in 78. But Smitty loved cars too. Both men just loved cars and you'll see more of that as I go through the slides. That's just a nice picture of a very handsome man. I know, I know that's a wow, isn't it? You know, i study these pictures all the time when i'm putting it together I found myself kind of swooning and drooling. I said, man, Dr. Bob was handsome. So that's actually an early slide of Akron that snuck in there. Because we were the rubber capital of the world, you know. So you're going to find the big names of the cyberlings and they started Goodyear and the Firestones and all these big industrialists like royalty were in Akron at the time. what plays a big part in our story. You're looking here at Akron City Hospital. That would be where Dr. Bob would begin putting some of his patients in in the early days. Bill D would come out of there on July 4th of 1935, and group number one would start. So I thought you might enjoy just seeing some of the background. Now, here you go again. There's another handsome picture of Dr. Bob. Even the men are whistling right now. I know, but you wanted to, Don. He's a young intern here with some other doctors. And then here's another picture. Gregory Peck. What do you think? I know. I don't know. Lucky Ann. Okay. So here he comes now with some nurses. The nurses loved him. We'll talk about that a little more today, later on. I know it's not great. I met some nurses, you know. They were told to sniff his breath, even after he was sober for a while, that they would always be checking on him. But they all loved him, and they're going to come to Akron. Now, the interesting thing is that there's going to be a very long courtship here, about 17 years. You might say Dr. Bob was a little slow. But he's going to bring Ann to Akron and they're going to buy the home in 1915 for $4,000. And here's Ann. And this picture always makes me think she's waiting on Dr. Bobby at that 17-year courtship there. And that's her wedding picture. I don't know if I got this in there now, but if you come to the home, one of the new surprises is the wedding invitation is framed now along with this picture on the bureau. So if you went there last year, we have new surprises for you this year. Dr. Bob's going to set up his office downtown Akron. It was a bustling downtown at that time. And it's on, I believe, the eighth floor here of the Second National Building. And here's a great picture of a younger Bob and Ann. You never see her legs. You usually here, kind of more matronly looking. But here, she's kind of hot there with those. I like that picture. Sometimes I don't show pictures of them. I don'T think they'd want me to. Some of them are kind of bad, but this is so cute. And there they are with their dog, Roger. And I got to tell you a funny story about this. I have a big poster of her that I've dry mounted. It's in 859 down on the first floor, but I'm up in the second floor in the office and I hear somebody say, I didn't know the Queen Mum was in AA. Some newcomer from a treatment center or something and I said, no, it's the mother of AA. Another great picture. You can see Dr. Bob's long legs. He had big lanky hands and legs and that was kind of a close-up from the film. Sort of sweet. Big ears, huh? and now you're going to introduce the children they had one child smitty that's her biological son and here bob is sitting at young bob is here with smitty check out that face you will never see a cuter baby than smitty never a cutter baby all the pictures are adorable dr bob was an only child he did not want his son to grow up as an only child so one day he comes home with sue from the children's home. She was five years old. I guess he thought it'd make a nice playmate, but that's not how it worked out. They didn't get along at all. They wrote a book called Children of the Healer. It's now out of print. In later years, they did get along. On the mantel, we have old pictures. You're going to see a picture of Smitty's wife, Betty. And Dr. Bob said she's all tight. She's built for speed and lighthouse keeping. That kind of gives you the sense of humor that Bob had. I knew Betty. Betty and Smitty later moved to Texas, and they would often be at this conference that Circe would throw called the Gathering of Eagles. So I did know Betty. There's a picture of them at one of our international conventions, and there's a figure of Betty. Betty passed. and um uh smitty married mona and mona became a very close friend of mine she lived in memphis smitty moved to memphis i think it was in the 80s like 80 45 when he married her they were married for a couple years and then smitty passed but we had mona for quite a few years after that and i got a call january 1st of this year that mona passed and i'm still missing mona a lot She was a wonderful gal and a great friend to Dr. Bob's home, just a great friend to Doctor Bob's Home. Sue will go on and marry this guy. This is the fourth man in. This is Ernie G., Ernie Galbraith, and it's quite a story of that marriage. I'll tell you more about that. This is the family. I tell this family because this woman here, Don, is Ernie's... No, that's his wife. That's young Ernie'S wife. The woman here you can't see. I'm sorry. She's off the charts here or is it this one? I don't know. Maybe it's this one. Anyway, Ernie Galbraith's family, the families were as much a part of AAA. She would go around and get this little booklet called The Upper Room and they would drop them off at the house. And if you come to the bathroom, we have it in the bathroom because the Oxford group used to check on us to see if we were maximum or not. And they checked to see si you had it open to the right date in your bathroom. Uh, the AAs didn't like that too much, but, uh, but this is to tell you that these families, this is also, um, Sue's adopted. This is her daughter, Bona. And, um. Bona had a daughter and, um and a son. So, um this is This is Sue, this is Bona, and that might be the baby, I'm not sure. And then here's a picture of the children later on the front porch at Dr. Bob's house right after we bought the house. And they made me take this shot of them. They said, Gail, take our picture, take out picture, because they wanted to show how they got along so well. And I love this picture, and I show this picture because if you read, next year I'm hoping, hope you come back. I want to talk about Akron in the 40s and the pamphlets that Dr. Bob commissioned to be written and it's just the mind of Dr. Robb. But in those pamphets, great trivia question here, what was the AA church? Does anybody know what the AA Church was considered then? You're looking at it right here at the kitchen. The kitchen was considered the AA Churche. So with the kids sitting in Dr. Bobs' kitchen, I love to say that. They're also sitting here next to Ann Smith's Bible. And isn't that sweet? Look, they're getting along now, you can tell, right? Isn't that great? And you might recognize this guy right here. He's about to have 50 years of sobriety, I'm told. Ray Grumney. Yeah, I don't know if he's an Akron boy or a Florida boy. You guys seem to claim him. I don' t know. But he was a long-time archivist for the home. has a lot of great stories to tell you I'm still picking his brain for some of the things this girl here she was a movie star they had come in to pose for that picture and this is Smitty and Sue and this John Leach, by the way John Leatch was from Scotland we got a fellow over there from Scotland he always everything we need to know is in the book that's how he talked we loved him This is Anne and Bob. This is taken a month before she died. She's probably blind in that picture. She had cataract surgery, and it blinded her in one eye, and then she didn't want the other eye done, so she could barely see. We'll talk about her more this afternoon. And you can see here how Dr. Bob feels after Anne. This is a picture taken after Anne Bob is lost without Anne. and of course you know he's going to give his last talk in cleveland um and uh at the um cleveland international and then he will pass uh in ann dies in 1949 dr bob dies november 16th of 1950 and before he dies bill has come to town and we were going to bring this build this big monument mausoleum thing befitting a co-founder and his wife and Bob takes the blueprints and lays them out on the floor and then he looks up at Bill and he says why don't we just get buried like regular folks so if you visit the co-founders graves their humility is really represented in um on their tombstones Bill's is even simpler than that okay so that's a little background on the Smiths for right now. Don mentioned, I got sober in 1978, fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous and then read a book by Bill's biographer Thompson and found out 855 Ardmore played a big part in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I wanted to buy the house. But I didn't know how to do that because I didn' t think I was going to stay sober long being the girl that owned Dr. Bob's house. And the other thing is when I did phone to buy it, who owned at the time was a guy by the name of OD. That's all, just two initials, OD. Well, the house in 1952, after Dr. Bob Dyes gets sold, Sue sells it, it was a motorcycle den for a while. It was a drug house for a While. It had been rented and yes, when the buses up and nobody had done anything in Akron, I don't understand it. They did not, they thought they were just to answer the phones and keeping the history was never in their minds at all. And so when the buses for Founders Day would come by, the drunks on the porch would throw beer cans at the buses. So it had been for sale and rented many times over. I'm sorry, you guys are not having LSD flashbacks. I don't know why I put those effects in. They're kind of weird now to me. I don't know why I did that. In case you didn't know, I was an alcoholic. I always add this picture. I'd like to tell you that's Woodstock. It's not. But that's my qualifying picture. And here we have a picture of, this is Bill's biographer here. This is the book that, we didn't have any books out when I got sober in 78. They had A comes of age, but you didn'T have Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. We didn'T know our history very well. So I was hosting Lois Wilson for Founders Day, and I met this lovely lady here, Nell Wing, who traveled with Lois. And as I was seating her, we had a conversation of which I was very grateful. She was going to give me a book signed by Lois, and then I said, if there's ever anything I could do for you, just ask. Be careful when you say that in Alcoholics Anonymous. She said, Gail, I'd like you to start an archives. So that was like, I think, 83. And so this gal here was at a funeral of an old-timer's, and she said, would you like to get involved in the purchase of Dr. Bob's home? I said yes. And I had to pledge $100 on a Bible and pledge myself to secrecy, which barely kept me sober because you know we're as sick as our secrets. Well, Wesley's coming up here in a minute. Yeah, I probably could have put him before. But anyway, I remember having dinner at my mother's house and saying, Mom, because I'm making a cold call. I was chosen to make a cold call on the owner because I'd given him my card, and I said, if you as much as sell, take a doorknob off this house, call me. I'll come pick it up. So they knew I had some relationship with this guy. He says, Gail, we want you to negotiate the deal. So I did, but that night I'm having dinner with my mother, and I say, Mom, I'm on a sacred mission of international importance. My mother was used to me by this time, but I can't tell you what it is. sworn to secrecy with that $100 on the Bible, right? So I think I have Wesley's picture in here because I need to tell you, maybe he's not showing up today. It was Wesley Parrish that had come to Akron and I'm saying that because he's a Florida boy. He's another one of your guys. And he came to Aklon to speak at Founders Day and he had gotten together with a couple of our old timers and they had talked about buying the home. And I came in on the very second meeting of this. So it all kind of goes back to Wesley too. So we get the house, and I think, okay, I fly out, and I tell Nell, now I can do what you've asked me to do. And so there he is. There's Wesley. And so he was a big part of that. But we didn't know how to do it, so that's why I thought my trip to New York would help. But I found out that the house is not Alcoholics Anonymous. And I stayed with Nell. And she said, well, you can be an AA archivist or you can beat the house as archivists. And I spent the next three days trying to talk her out of our traditions. Here's the purchase of the home. I had to, I think we paid $38,000 for it, and then I had to write an extra check for $500. I held it in my name for six months because we had to roll it over into a foundation, which is what it is today. It's called Dr. Bob's Home. It's no longer called Founders Foundation. It's Dr. Rob's Home, and yes, since I was there when we purchased it, there were 12 steps leading up to the house. That's the first thing that's amazing. Some of you, how many of you have not been to the House? Oh my gosh, well then I'm taking you on a field trip now, okay? Let's get a bus and go, huh? You'll want to go after this. It just happens. I've given this talk enough to tell you. So we had these badges. We weren't allowed to talk about it in AA, and it was very controversial. They almost threw us out of AA, so we wore these badges you had to ask us about Dr. Bob's house. And this is my trip to Stepping Stones where I learned about how to do it. You know, I might, I don't know, almost have time to skip this. I have so much I want to share with you. I think I will. That's Nell and I just added a new picture of Nell. Nell trained me, took me into her home and taught me the difference and she said what belongs to Dr. Bop belongs in Dr. Bobs home but what belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous belongs to Alcoholic Anonymous, the General Service Office. So I want to tell you right now, the policy in our home is we're just keeping the Smith family history. We're not keeping the history of AlcoholicsAnonymous. Okay, so, but that took us in Akron a long time to learn that, but I learned that directly from Nell and actually the workshops we're doing here in Florida, a lot of it comes from her teachings that I've tried to pass on. So they bought this rock I remember New York being upset about it because I'm also in New York when we're doing some of this stuff but because Dr. Bob was called The Rock and for the 50th you can see Sue here and this is her husband, she marries later Bob and Ann didn't like him they wouldn't let her see him she was running away from him all the time Dr.Bob interfered on that hooked her up with Ernie gave him some money to take her out and buy her a burger she maries Ernie it's a terrible marriage this is before Al-Anon and codependency and all that and this guy comes back to town his childhood sweetheart comes back to town, his wife has died and they get back together again and get married and I knew both of them well during that time we have a big dedication there the governor, they're cutting the ribbon this is for the 50th the home was open for the 60th I break away because I only understand traditions and I needed to put it under three legacies for me so I spent the next 20 years at our office, which I'm going to show you if I have time. I don't know if you have time By the way, you're looking here at John Seiberling. This is Henrietta Seiberlin's son He was there during the days of Bob and all of them meeting and he kind of wishes he became a congressman and he kinda wished that the Congress had the Oxford Group principles. He thought it would help him a lot True, he used to say that He used to weep when he'd tell this story So at this time We're on the National Register of Historic Places. The house is now ours. Here you see the early people that formed the first board after we bought the home. And it's a kind of beautiful quote that she says. This is Kay Stewart. The home of Dr. Bob and Anne's is yours now. You have worked hard to make it so. I've heard that God will do the impossible if we'll do the possible. Come home to Dr. Bob's house and visit often. What's a home without its family? So that's the sentiments from the very first time. I guess I could have read it easier if I'd have pushed the next button. Yeah, okay, try to remember that next time I tell this. There's a picture of me with Nell, and she was bubbly. And one time I did a talk on Nell And you couldn't have found Nell because Nell's whole life was devoted to Alcoholics Anonymous and to Lois and Bill. Beautiful dedication of a non-alcoholic. So I break away, and years later they give me this with no money. And they say put an archives in it. So if you ever visit the Akron Archives, which I'm going to take you through quickly, there's our office. I don't want you to miss that. It tells you a little bit about my history as well. Stained glass piece here. You already want to come, don't you? Don't you want to comes just to see that? For absolutes, sobriety coins took us a year to do 1,000 pieces of glass. And that's because our work was getting mixed up with Dr. Bob's house and we wanted to keep, we work in a spirit of cooperation, but we are not the same thing. We can write grants. We can take your money. We can do things a lot differently at Dr. Rob's home. Our things here are not considered, we don't put any value on them. That's spiritual property. It's your heritage. Long hallways you put on a headset, I'll tell you the history of alcoholics Anonymous as a tour guide for you when you're there. And you can tell I did bulletin boards as a teacher. This is the main room here. We have Sister Ignatius' rosary. We have a multi-length copy of the big book, Dr. Bob's, and lots of wonderful things for you to see. All right, back to the house. We did a lot of campaigns to restore it. Nothing like what we're doing now, but I'm just going to take you quickly through some of the restoration projects. Oh, there's our suite. We got some old timers sitting at this table here and you guys are in for a big treat today. These are our old timers. We do a Gratitude Sunday and they would come every year in November. We bought the house next door in 94. Here you have, this is Dick who did the movie. We have a film. It's in that basket there, House of Miracles. Now, our latest renovation where the money that we're seeking now is for the outside, but this is for inside. It cost us $100,000. We had to put beams in and stuff. So I say here, this is very upsetting because we took the home and we had to tear it apart. Look at this. Ceilings, walls were crumbling. It has had a lot of use over the years. I know, somebody just moaned, right? These are the beams we had to put in to support the living room so you could all stand in there. We're going to have to do the same thing with the house next door. This is the original linoleum we found in the bathroom. We moved that, moved the steps, moved the rock and the flag because in 2012, the Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior, we are now a National Historic Landmark along with Stepping Stones. So we really have got to raise our standards. Yes, I celebrate that with you. Thank you. I celebrate that with you. And I want you to know these fundraisers are so important. We can't just slap paint on the house anymore. We can't just jury rig things. When you're a National Historic Landmark, you have to do things a certain way. And so it does cost us a lot more money this outside renovation project, which you're going to see. There we are. That's Harmon. He's the chairman. Um, he's cutting the ribbon, uh, at our dedication and, um, our home is a symbol of the hospitality that once was the Smiths. Although we don't have the coffee pot, which I'll tell you about there. You're looking at the coffee pod there. That suit with the original, um... Before she died, she sold $100,000 worth to Brown University. And I'll telling you a little bit about what you'll find at Brown because I was just up there in April. Here she is again with Ray. You're now looking at a picture that's actually in the memorial issue of the grapevine. That is the living room as it appeared when Bob and Bill met in 1935. Now, when we redo the home, you have to get different periods. We got a 15-year window here of how the home would have looked. So here you have a picture of Dr. Bob. You notice they now have carpeting. They got that towards the end. We do have a piece to show you there and you can see the arrangement close to 1950 there. We have that on the mantel. We want it to look as if the Smiths have just stepped out and gone to a meeting. So we try to keep everything pretty, period. That's a nice picture of him. It's in the backyard. The steps are coming off like this now. um ray i know he's kind of taking a nap there but he was worried about the steps they used to go off to the side we've redone them correctly to this picture is that what you remember that's how they are now ray you can rest now because you can go back i just wanted to let you know that they are the way they were originally now and Dr. Bob loved cards but he also loved cards and you know he used to say if you can't have fun in your sobriety there's something wrong and I think that he certainly demonstrates that here he's playing cards at the city club he was an outdoors guy you know, he was just a man's man you know He could shoe pool, he could pitch horseshoes, he fished, he did a lot of those kinds of, there's a pigeon horseshoes there. And here he is in Yellowstone and they took Smitty's car. I think this is a Model A. It didn't have a top. So Smitty said to Dr. Bob, what are we going to do if it rains? This is Dr. Rob's answer. We're going to get wet. Here's a new, these are pictures you have not seen, but we haven't blown up now in the basement, which I'll show you later. Here they are, they're racing at Daytona. We're back in Florida again, right? They would come down here and they had a little cottage down here. Here he is as an old Cadillac there. We cannot figure out how the window got broken. I wish I had that story. You know, and Dr. Bob, this is his dream car. And they said that he just loved to drive really fast. And the older he got, the faster he drove. He used to rev the car up, come flying in, slam on the brakes and skid right into the curb but I'm more yeah um that's the living room as it appears now after that major renovation I'd like to show you some shots here uh Ann would gather around here and listen to opera and convention um that was the entertainment you know when kids come in now a hundred years ago right this house is 100 years old I'm a former school teacher so sometimes kids come in with their parents. And, you know, for them, it's a really cool thing for them too because they don't see it. Well, they did get a TV close to the end. But, you know, remember when we couldn't leave the phone? We'd be like a dog on a chain. You know, we had the old phone there, the old typewriter, things like that. So Dr. Bob actually rewired this lamp. This is Ann's Bible here. He would sit in his chair. He had insomnia. I don't know if you can see it right here, but we have a piece of the carpet. Books were laying all over the house. I'm still going to be throwing more books on the floor as we get them because they were avid readers and there wasn't a lot of room behind the fireplace here our original books one of them is a book i found what is the oxford group signed by dr bob i opened it up it said what i bought it for well it was behind the gate lodge at a harvest festival and i asked them if they had any old books and they said no and i said would you have any spiritual books and he said yes and so i picked this little skinny book up. There was a small grouping of spiritual books, and it said, what is the Oxford group? And I went, oh my God, I wonder if that had anything to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I opened it up, and It said, R. H. Smith, 855 Ardmore, his book, Please Return. Well, I'm bargain addicted, so I tried to get him down to a quarter. I had to pay 35 cents for that book. But it said Please return, you'll find it right on this bookshelf here. It is now back with his personal books. A great story. You know what? I didn't find that book. That book found me. That was right after Nell asked me to do that. You couldn't make that happen in a million years. You could make it happen. And we're getting a lot of nice donations now so that every time we get a piece that belongs to the Smiths, we can pass that story on to you because every room tells a story and we're getting more things all the time lately, which, oh, I put that in. So Brown University gets the coffee pot and 19 crates went to Brown. It broke our hearts, broke your heart, I'm sure, because we're part of a family. And so I got invited to Brown last year to speak so that they could find out what they had. Because if you're not an AA archivist or in the program, they call the coffee pod the Holy Grail. It's not the Holy Grail. It It's a symbol of hospitality. It did not keep Dr. Bob and Bill sober, like one article said. The higher power keeps us sober. So you see what happens when our history gets out there. It gets distorted, and our anonymity could get lost too. That spirit probably won't be kept. So I wanted to tell you this. Many people think that the Bible, yes, the Bible was very important. I want you to know these people were seekers. Did you know they were doing seances at Dr. Bobs' house? Yeah, we don't talk about that much though, do we? So I, before this talk, because I'm going to be giving this talk a couple times around the country this year, and I went to the library of the books that were donated, not donated, purchased by Sue, the ones that Sue had held. We have some of Smitty's at the house, but Sue's. You're going to find books on spiritualism and mediumship. You're gonna find, we knew he read Confucius and some stuff on Buddhism. you're going to find theosophy books you're gonna find parapsychology books you're gunna find the occult and all I can tell you is that early on they were really seeking we didn't have conference approved material back then you know, the co-founders had recommended reading lists things like Sermon on the Mountain New Thought books like As a Man Thinketh by James Allen they read wide spectrum I hate it when somebody comes along with an agenda A historian comes along with an agenda, and the agenda distorts the truth. If you want to know the truth, go to Brown University, take a look at their holdings, and then you make up your mind what was Dr. Bob reading. Now, caution you, some of these things might have been gifts because they're all trading gifts all the time. But I do have a sense of some of the things that they were reading and what they were doing. today if you come and see this display right here you are going to find the smith's version of the saturday evening post it is their magazine not their version i apologize their copy of the magazine original you will also find the very first publication that came out alcoholics and god by morris markey and um the smiffs were excited because there was such a stigma on them and they thought they couldn't wait to get up the drugstore because they thought we're finally getting respectable. Also, for all you people that love history, go get the next issue of the Saturday Evening Post this month. They've redone the Saturday evening post article to some degree. Yeah, I know. I can't find a copy. It's selling out everywhere just like the first time. Yeah. So that's a hot tip from me. You can tell them Gail sent you. Just kidding. They don't know who I am. Okay. So Dr. Bob, I said had insomnia. So they were ferocious readers. Here's the dining room. And in the dining room, you're going to see the typewriter. I'm going to take you on a little tour here because the stories got written here. Three fifths of the stories came from that living room and those guys didn't want to write the story. They were very reluctant. Jim Scott helped them. That's the typewriter that Sue typed him up with. She was a secretary or she was studying in a business college. So, and this is the table that's so important here. Goodyear ashtray. That' s what they used at the first meetings. 39 big book here a lamp there that ann i believe actually painted when the globe broke she would sit there and she would call the wives and the new members and ask them how their quiet time went you're in the kitchen now oh i don't know back in the dining room now there you go time warp that's the sam of our dr bob traded some services for that those are some of the early members uh that wrote the their stories in the book we have their stories hanging from their pictures now at 859. Okay, a little tour here of the kitchen. There's a bathroom there and I just found out something from Mike Fitzpatrick that just came in. He said that there was a sweeper in that there. We don't have it in there yet. I have to talk the board into this one. And there was shower curtain on the sweeper that was in that bathroom because the guys kept peeing on the sweeper, so. Isn't that just one of those crazy stories I had to tell? You didn't know that one, did you, Ray? See that? Somebody sent me those. I don't even remember who sent them to me. If they're in the room today, thank you because our story takes place during a depression. Both co-founders said that it was providential, that we came out of hard times. You know, the fellowship that was so precious then, we still have some of it today. Today's a beautiful example of fellowship, by the way. And this is not just a fundraiser. It is a fun-raiser. So we're going to have fun. But this thing takes place during some hard times, the darkest period in our country. And it brings people together. And sometimes when they would have their potlucks, there wasn't enough, there was no food. So there would be all these different potato dishes. Sometimes it was just milk and butter and And the Smiths, you know, when Archie Tobridge comes, they bring him in from Detroit. And he stays with them for 10 months. But there's not enough food even. And he was worried. And they said to him, as long as we have a house, our house is your house. That's the love of the Smith family. He said he was literally nurtured back to health by them. Okay. This is the bedroom. This isthe bedroom that Dr. Bob and Bill slept in. It's also Smitty's bedroom. but the kids lost their bedrooms. When they would come home and smell that peraldehyde, there's a little picture of it. There you go. There's the peraltehyde stewed sour, that sauerkraut and the tomatoes. And can you imagine getting sober on that? Smitty used to say those early alcoholics were a hearty bunch. So the kids would come Home and they would smell the peralehyde and they would Sue would have to go to the couch and Smitty would go to the attic. And we've now finished the attic, so I'll be able to show you that as well. This is precious. It's original linoleum. All the original furniture is back. We bought some of that before Sue sold the rest to Brown. We actually did get some of it. This black dress here is, so, I will tell you a story. Well, actually, I'll tell it later, probably this afternoon when I talk about Ann. Ann and Bob, if you had to sum them up, it was humility. um the hard times but right before a big event she got two new dresses that was a big deal and Clarence's wife Dorothy said to her Ann which ones are you going to wear to the dance and she said oh no I couldn't wear one of the new dresses to the danse one of wives there might not have a new dress and they would feel bad if I ever told you a story about Ann Smith, that one, to me, I'm a gal. I'm not going out if I don't feel like I'm looking. I'm thinking of the other gals, how they're going to feel. I'm saying, how am I going to look, right? I know the women get that, and I can't imagine the love of Ann Smith thinking of others, always putting others before herself. By the way, I'll tell you a funny story. Yeah, I may go over it, but I don' t care at this point. I'm on a roll. Are you on a role with me? I hope you are. All right, good. All right. You're looking at the headboard here, right, But that's really the footboard. I told you Sue married Ernie. He burned it up, probably in one of his many relapses. So we had to take the foot board and make it the head board. You like that one? I thought you would. This is a famous bathroom here. It's famous because I told your Dr. Bob was a sneak drinker. There was a porch outside here. It now has a glove with a bottle of alcohol in it, little bottle from Prohibition times. He would throw it up on the porch. Then he'd sneak it in. See right here? That's a clothes chute, and it has a ledge up above. Don't cut yourself when you come. There's a ledgeup above. That's where he'd put it, and then he'd drop it down later into the clothes basket. We've kind of tried to dress the medicine cabinet up and put some things back in there that would look like it. Okay, you're up in the attic now. The attic is a place where if anybody's got an old Lionel train set, I just read a document that said the kids' toys were up there an old dollhouse and a Lionel train set were up there and I want to get that up there as soon as I get a hold of those so we can talk about that up there but right now you're looking at the crib of Dr. Bob Smith that Susie put him in it was rescued by Mona and her daughter in an old shed that was going to when Smitty moved they were going to throw it out and they put it back together again and gave it to us and above the crib this is a baby picture you've never seen of Dr Bob he looks like he needs a drink to me I don't know he doesn't now this is smitty this is a picture of ann smith now see that all can you not think that is the cutest baby dang that baby came in like a sweetheart look at that and those are framed up see here you have dr bob here you'll have smitty and here you have the picture van here is this beautiful crib and we have the christening gown we believe dates all the way back to Dr. Bob as well. Isn't that great? We never knew we were going to get these things. These are just great. This, the thing you're looking at now is a piece that's going to hang above the Father's Bible because his mother did that sampler. That's a very... Samplers are rare in themselves alone. Let it be from that part of time where they were doing those. So I want you to know Because your fundraising helps us to preserve this. This cost, both the christening gown and this, to do it right, cost us $1,500. See, things die. They are not going to be with it. That's in a plexiglass. We're working on film on our windows. That's going to cost us 6,000 to stop the UV rays. These things were damaged. They were on cardboard that was acidic. And I'm always a big supporter. And we do want it to be here for generations to come. So that's another piece that we had preserved. There it is there, along with the Father's Bible is right underneath. See here? And that's all we have. But it gives us a chance to tell you about the Father that loved the Son so much. And you'll read that story in Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. And we have pictures of St. Johnsbury up there because it's becoming like the Vermont room. And then this is the maids' quarters. Now, they had a maid, actually, even during hard times. but she didn't stay there. And so what we did is, we tried to recreate Smitty's room up here, and also Anne sewed for everyone, so we figured that's a sewing room. So we have an old sewing machine up there now because, you know, if she saw that your collar was off or something, she'd sew it on, and if it was spring, she'd take it off. Times were hard, and she was helping people. So, we used to have the gift store in the basement. Nobody liked that. We knew the Smiths were probably wouldn't be into a gift store in their basement. So we got it out, we put it at 859, the house next door, but we didn't know what to do with the basement, so I got these great pictures and we blew them up. And so you'll see them, there's a great photo op here and Smitty in a car here. So the basement has become kind of an exciting place. This is Smitty's first car, he's kind of sexy there isn't he? So we tried to make it kind to look like a garage. Great photo ops down there. There's Ann Smith's area, although I think she made Sue do a lot of the wash. Sue resented that. But that's the wash area, the old washing machine. There's the old fruit cellar. What's going on? You know what? My battery is not plugged in. We did not do that. So my bag is here. Would you grab my bag? It's going to go off in a minute. There's a blue backpack, and I'll get this plugged in because I'm going to lose this whole talk here in a minute. That's a medicine cabinet. Dr. Bob's dictionary is in there. And hourglass, thanks. Would you get it out? Thank you. Hourglass, this is 1939 dictionary within his office. And that's not an hourglass. It's a magnifying glass. It's in the front, I believe. And some of the old equipment. There's what it looks like at Founders Day. Almost done, actually. Oh, no, I'm not. I've got a big surprise for you. There it is at Founders Day as well. And here's the big surprise. You find it? Uh-huh. It's in here. It's not here. My board? Oh, it's here. Come in. Well, you know what? It's nothing more. It's unplugged in. It's what? It's plugged in here. Where's the... George Hood came in 1946 and he bought a wire recorder with him. And he recorded Dr. Bob and Ann for a message to Bill Wilson. And Smitty was there, so Smitty weighed in. Betty was there. And now if you come and you press one of these buttons in this drawer outside the room, it's going to play. There's the old wire recorder, and we have the original wire that Mike gave us. And then they take the wire recording to Bill and Lois. Bill and lois then... Is it on? Why isn't it on ? We don't have power. All right, I'm going to try to get it through it. I don't think we're going to make it, though. This is sad. This is the big surprise. There's the wire recorder. And Phil's not even talking anyway. 46. It's not coming on. It played earlier today. Oh, I wanted to play the recording. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What we've done is we took the recording so you can hear it. And I want to tell you, when my board went over to hear it, it's been a dream of mine, I finally got sent the right guy through the door, right? I've been asking for 10 years because the only recording that we have of Ann Smith's voice, which I'll play for you this afternoon, comes from that bedroom. It's the only time you're going to hear the mother of AA. Dr. Bob, we have very little audio of Dr. Robb, right, So it's precious. And when you stand right outside the bedroom where this is taped, you're going to press a button and they're going to speak to you again. And it's really moving people. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. I did have to reboot because it didn't want to play. So we had another technical problem. So then they take it to Bill and Lois and Bill gets nervous in front of the mic. And he's adorable, but he's going to give a report to Bob on the state of affairs. he's talking about the conference and I want you to hear what he's saying to Bob and then he's going to pick up the violin and he's and you're going to feel the love that the two co-founders had when you hear Bill play that violin for Dr. Bob um and I want you to hear that off of this recording. So God willing. I tried rebooting and seeing if it would play. If it doesn't play, we'll have to play with it later. Okay. Come on, baby. Come on. Is the volume not up enough? Gadget that we have to talk through. It was mighty good to hear from John. Sorry, that's too loud. Oops. You have no idea of how terrifically concerned so many of us have been. Now that the worst is over, we can all breathe better. I've just been having a long talk with George about the state of AA affairs out through the country. And he has sharpened up to me, as he doubtless did to you, The tremendous necessity of getting some sort of council organized, which can relate the foundation to the AA groups. I also went over the internal situation here with George, and on the whole, he is inclined to think that the changes suggested in the reorganization plan are... hello ann and bob isn't this a great gadget that we have to talk through it was mighty good to hear from george how much better you both are you have no idea of how terrifically concerned so many of us have been now that the worst is over we can all breathe better i've just been having a long talk with george about the state of aa affairs out through the country and he has sharpened up to me as he doubtless did to you the tremendous necessity of getting some sort of council organized which can relate the foundation to the aa groups I also went over the internal situation here with George, and on the whole he is inclined to think that the changes suggested in the reorganization plan are really necessary for us here in New York before we actually start the formation of a council. We'd awfully much like to know if you won't come down to Bedford Hills sooner than the fall but I suppose there is small use in begging you. You know, I still feel very awkward and hard put to find words to talk into this microphone. As you see, I have a good deal of mic pride. Even now, I am beginning to get more and more confused. In fact, my face is getting quite red for you know I am not one who usually lacks words. Lois and I hope you both will surely get well and strong and that very, very fast. We think of you so very, very much dear people and look forward to the moment when we can see her, see you. I've still got the mic right. This is your announcer cutting in. We're now going to have a violin solo by Bill LaVertoso. ¶¶ Thank you. So long, dear people. We'll be seeing you soon. Was that worth the wait? I'm sorry about that. There he is. I wanted him to have that picture while we were doing that. All right, another surprise. This is the finale here. We took on the outside, and we had to spend some money to get down to the original paint. We had to do paint chips and send it away and everything. So you are now looking at the home with its original colors um brand new hot off the press pictures of uh dr bob's home as it looks today is beautiful we wept we're so i mean we are so thrilled doesn't it look right now it looks right and that's um if you were to visit at christmas um that's how the home looked this year at christmus isn't that beautiful and then i just got this is hot off the press too. This is a winter picture. Yeah, what? Yeah, they moved the rock in between the two homes. Because when you're a National Historic Landmark, we don't want to put our ego on the house. We want it to look like the Smiths lived in it, not like, oh, we think a rock is a good idea and how about a flag and all that. That's nice, but I always try to remind them at the boardroom table what would Bob and Ann want us to do. Well, you can change a boardroom decision in a hurry when you ask that so we want it to we want you to see it as it looked and have your pictures taken as it worked when they lived there that's the whole purpose of what we're doing not how we think it should be but how it was and there you have it there's the picture of the home again so sorry about the technology but I know that that bringing you that violin can you feel Bill's love for his buddy and Ann and beautiful couple ship that they had together thank you so much Thank you very much and thank you for your help.