A.A.-Founders: Reflections about Anne Smith, Dr. Bob’s Wife

A.A.-Founders: Reflections about Anne Smith, Dr. Bob’s Wife

Dick B.
© 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved

I had never heard of Anne Ripley Smith. I had never heard of the role she played in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio. In fact, I finally learned that almost nobody in the recovery community knew anything significant about the wife of Dr. Bob. Even in Akron—where A.A. was founded, where the original “Christian fellowship” program was developed, and where Dr. Bob and Anne are buried—there was a common misspelling of Anne’s first name and little historical material on tap.

In brief, here’s what I discovered that can bless those AAs, Al-Anons, and others who want to learn the facts for themselves:

• Anne Smith began keeping a journal in 1933. She continued to make entries through
1939. Most of the journal can be found at A.A. General Services Archives in New York, but you may find that getting permission to see that is an exciting challenge. Fortunately, with the help of Sue Smith Windows—daughter of Dr. Bob and Anne—A.A. Archivist Frank Mauser was able to obtain the trustees’ archives committee authorization for providing me with my copy.

• Anne Smith held a morning “Quiet Time” each day for AAs and their families. She
led them in prayer. She read the Bible to them. She shared with them from her journal.
Attendees listened for revelation from God. She held discussion sessions with them and then closed with prayer.

• Anne Smith’s Journal 1933-1939, 3rd ed. (1998), by Dick B., is a classic, yet virtually unknown and unread, historical record of what early AAs studied in the Bible, read in the way of recommended Christian religious literature, and heard about the Oxford Group's life-changing ideas (like the Self Examination, Confession, Conviction, Decision, Four Absolutes, Quiet Time, Prayer, Restitution, and a spiritual experience) that were later to become embedded in Bill Wilson’s Big Book.

• Anne’s loving outreach to, and work with, newcomers and wives was legendary.

• Anne formed the first women’s group in 1936 before A.A. was a year old.

• Anne counseled Lois Wilson in New York.

• It was Anne who taught: “Of course the Bible ought to be the main Source Book of
all. No day ought to pass without reading it.” [Dick B., Anne Smith’s Journal, 1933-1939, 82]

• In A.A.’s earliest days, Anne served AAs and their families as nurse, counselor,
teacher, evangelist, cook, and housekeeper.

• “The Mother of A.A.” This was the title that Bill used frequently to describe Anne in conjunction with her indispensable contribution to him and Bob and early AAs and their families.

The details about this remarkable woman, whom A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson called both the “Mother of A.A.” and a “Founder” of A.A.—and also the details about the original Akron A.A. “Christian fellowship” program, the Bible, and recovery Anne Ripley Smith recorded in and shared from her personal journal are available today: Dick B., Anne Smith’s Journal 1933-1939: A.A.’s Principles of Success, 3rd ed, (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998). Foreword by Bob S., son of Dr. Bob and Anne Ripley Smith. For more information on this title, please see www.dickb.com/annesm.shtml.

dickb@dickb.com

Gloria Deo