The Conversion of Bill W.

[dickb]

One of the most important resource discoveries of the last two or three years is the material that tells about Bill Wilson's focus on conversion as the cure for alcoholism. Bill's grandfather Willie was cured of alcoholism by a conversion experience atop Mount Aeolus in East Dorset, Vermont. Bill was exposed to the conversion solution as a member of East Congregational Church in East Dorset and at the temperance meetings he attended as a youth. He was exposed to conversion as a solution when Dr. Silkworth told him that Jesus Christ could cure him--Silkworth referring to Jesus as the Great Physician. Bill was himself converted to Christ when he went to the altar at Calvary Rescue Mission; and he wrote that for sure he had been born again. He then decided to call on the Great Physician for help; and soon he cried out to the Great Physician for help, had his famous "hot flash" conversion experience; and was cured of alcoholism. The conversion cure was confirmed by his physician Dr. Silkworth. And Bill spent the balance of the day studying the William James book on Varieties of Religious Experience. Bill felt these studies validated his conversion and cure--just as they validated the conversion cures of Jerry McAuley and others in the missions. And Bill went on the carry the message that the Lord had cured him of his terrible disease. The details are contained on page 191 of the Big Book. When Bill went to Akron and met Dr. Bob, the two men adopted conversion as part of their recovery program. Newcomers were required to profess a belief in God and make a decision for Christ and become born again children of the Creator. The material is covered in the new title The Conversion of Bill W. http://www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml.

[dickb]

Our Pages on Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous

“The Prince of all Twelfth Steppers”
Cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous

Dick B.
© 2008 by Anonymous. All rights reserved.

Summary of Contents

• Picture of Robert H. Smith, M.D. (A.A.’s Dr. Bob)
• Books about Dr. Bob and Alcoholics Anonymous
• Photograph Pages
• Biographical Data
• The Dr. Bob Core Library at North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury, Vermont
• Eulogy delivered by Dr. Walter Tunks, Rector, St. Paul’s Church in Akron

[ Photo of Dr. Bob ]


Books about Dr. Bob and Alcoholics Anonymous

DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980)
RHS: Co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Our Beloved Dr. Bob (NY: The A.A. Grapevine,
Inc., 1951, 1979).
The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches: Their Last Major Talks
(NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972, 1975).
Bob Smith and Sue Smith Windows, Children of the Healer: The Story of Dr. Bob’s Kids
(Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1994).
Dick B., Dr. Bob and His Library: A Major A.A. Spiritual Source, 3rd ed. (Kihei, HI:
Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998).
URL: http://dickb.com/drbob.shtml
Dick B., The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2d ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research
Publications, Inc., 1998).
URL: http://dickb.com/Akron.shtml\
Dick B., Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book As a
Youngster in Vermont (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2008)
URL: http://dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml
Dick B., Dr. Bob’s Days in St. Johnsbury, Vermont – work in progress.
Dick B., The Prince of All Twelfth Steppers: A Biography of Alcoholics Anonymous’ Cofounder Robert Holbrook Smith, M.D. (Dr. Bob) – work in progress.


Photograph Pages
(Soon to follow these Dr. Bob pages)

Boyhood Home and Birthplace, 297 Summer Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

North Congregational Church, 1325 Main Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

St. Johnsbury Academy, Main Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont (founded in 1842 by Erastus, Thaddeus, and Joseph Fairbanks, with Thaddeus contributing the buildings [North Hall, 1873] and South Hall [1872]).

The Young Men’s Christian Association Building, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum (Free Public Library, donated by Horace Fairbanks, and opened November 1871), 1171 Main Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Fairbanks Museum of Natural Science and Rotary Planetarium, Main Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont

The Fairbanks Scale Company’s scale manufacturing plant, circa 1880

The Fairbanks Scale Company., 1890, providing hundreds of jobs to people in the area.

A Panoramic View of St. Johnsbury

One of the Original Drafts of the proposed Alcoholics Anonymous first edition cover


Biographical Data

The “Great Awakening” of 1875 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Judge Walter Perrin Smith and Miss Susan Amanda Holbrook were married in Vermont on August 15, 1876.

Judge Smith and his wife Susan were first listed in the North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury Yearbook, in 1878.

Their only son Robert Holbrook Smith [Dr. Bob] was born at the family home on Summer Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, on August 8, 1879

Robert H. Smith was first listed in the North Congregational Church, St, Johnsbury, Yearbook, in 1880.

Judge Walter and Mrs. Smith then became members of the North Congregational Church on May 7, 1883.

Young Bob Smith attended the Summer Street elementary school in St. Johnsbury from 1885 to 1894.

The 15-year-old Bob Smith entered St. Johnsbury Academy in 1894.

Bob met Anne Robinson Ripley of Oak Park, Illinois at a St. Johnsbury Academy dance while Anne (a student at Wellesley) was spending a holiday with a college friend.

Robert H. Smith was a good student, debater, fraternity member, manager of the Glee Club, and Commencement Orator when he graduated from St. Johnsbury Academy in 1898. He graduated with good grades.

Throughout his years as a youngster in St. Johnsbury. Dr. Bob received excellent, extensive, and continuing Christian religious training from his parents. Bob’s father Judge Smith was a member, Sunday school superintendent, Sunday school teacher, and later a deacon at North Congregational Church. Bob’s mother Susan H. Smith was a member, Sunday school Superintendent, Sunday school teacher, president of the Congregational Women’s Club, singer in the church quartet, and involved in domestic mission work at North Congregational. Judge Smith had been a president of the YMCA and examiner at St. Johnsbury Academy. Mrs. Smith was a graduate of the Academy, a teacher there, an Academy historian, and a member of the Alumni Executive Committee. All scholars at the Academy were required to attend Daily Chapel with prayer and Scripture reading, and all were required weekly to attend a church service and Bible study. Bob specifically stated that from childhood through high school, he went to church, Sunday school and evening service, Monday night Christian Endeavor, and sometimes to the Wednesday-evening prayer meeting. His activity in the Christian Endeavor Society involved confession of Christ, Bible study meetings, prayer meetings, conversion meetings, discussion of religious literature, and the observing of Quiet Hour.

In 1898, Bob attended Dartmouth College, which was located about 60 miles south at Hanover, New Hampshire. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1902.

Bob spent the next three years working at various jobs in Chicago, Montreal, and Boston. In fact, for his first two years out of Dartmouth (1902-1904), he was employed by the Fairbanks people, the St. Johnsbury scales manufacturing company for which his father had once been an attorney. Today, the successor of that company is known as Fairbanks Scales, Inc., which is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, but still maintains a plant in St. Johnsbury.

One of Bob’s friends said that Bob occasionally came to Chicago on Fairbanks business. And an A.A. publication added that he probably saw Anne, who was then teaching school at nearby Oak Park, Illinois.

Smith entered the University of Michigan as a premed student in 1905. Thereafter, despite his drinking problems, Bob received his credits and was enabled to transfer as a junior to Rush University in the fall of 1907.

In 1910, after further training at Rush Memorial College in Chicago, he received his medical degree. In fact, his scholarship and deportment had been so meritorious that he secured a highly coveted two-year internship at City Hospital, Akron, Ohio.

He completed his internship in 1912 and opened an office in the Second National Bank Building, and remained there until his retirement in 1948.

Dr. Bob Smith married Miss Anne Robinson Ripley on January 25, 1915, in a ceremony at the home of Anne’s mother, Mrs. Joseph Pierce Ripley.

Robert H. and Anne R. Smith purchased a home at 855 Ardmore in Akron, Ohio—the place where Alcoholics Anonymous was founded on June 10, 1935 by Bob and Bill Wilson.

The only son of Dr. Bob and Anne Smith was named Robert Ripley Smith. He was born on June 5, 1918, and he was given the nickname “Smitty.” Many years later, Smitty became a much sought after speaker at A.A., Al-Anon, and history meetings.

After a period as a general practitioner, Dr. Bob decided to become a surgeon. He received further medical training at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. In 1929, he began a specialized practice as a proctologist and rectal surgeon.

The other Smith child, Suzanne Smith Windows, was born February 15, 1918. Her biological mother had turned her children over to their maternal grandmother who, in turn, gave up the children to the Summit County, Ohio, Children’s Home. In the summer of 1923, at age 5, Sue was adopted by Dr. Bob and Anne Smith. Sue spent the next 17 years living with them and her step-brother Smitty in the Smith house on Ardmore Avenue.

Dr. Bob’s daughter Sue Smith Windows was very clear in a phone conversation with Dick B. that she and her brother Smitty were regular attenders at the Church of Our Saviour in the Akron, Ohio, area. She told Dick B. that the church was located at the corner of Oakdale and Crosby Streets. Sue could not verify that her father (Dr. Bob) had belonged to the church, but stated that he probably did because “We got to the Church of Our Saviour Sunday School somehow.” At age 80, both children recalled for Dick B. that they had been taken to Sunday School by their father Dr. Bob.

Dick B. personally verified that Dr. Bob and his wife Anne became charter members of the Westminster United Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio, by “letter of transfer.” They joined the church on June 3, 1936 and remained members of that church until April 3, 1942.

Anne Ripley Smith died on June 1, 1949. Anne was called by A.A. Cofounder Bill Wilson “one of the founders of A.A.” and “the Mother of A.A.”

Shortly after Anne’s death, and before he died, Dr. Bob became a communicant at St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church in Akron, Ohio. This was the church of which Dr. Walter F. Tunks was rector when Bill Wilson contacted him in 1935, searching for a drunk to help. Tunks was Harvey Firestone, Sr.’s pastor and was a substantial participant in the events that brought Oxford Group Founder Dr. Frank N. D. Buchman, to Akron in the famous events of January, 1933, that soon led to the founding of A.A. in 1935. Tunks performed several liturgical services involving Bob’s family.

Dr. Bob died of cancer at City Hospital, Akron, on November 16, 1950. He was not only the Cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, but was rightly called by Bill Wilson “The Prince of All Twelfth Steppers”—certainly in recognition of the fact that he helped over 5000 drunks without any thought of pay.

Robert Holbrook Smith, M.D., left a legacy of many things not material: He believed that the Good Book contained all the answers to his problems and those of the A.A. pioneers. He read the Bible from cover to cover at least three times and freely quoted from it when asked a question about the A.A. program. He read voluminous amounts of religious literature and widely circulated it among the A.A. pioneers and their families. He insisted that new members profess a belief in God. He also insisted that they, as he and Bill Wilson themselves had done, signify their decision to commit their lives to Christ. Quiet Time, where there was reading of the Bible, prayer to God, and seeking God’s guidance, were “musts” in the early Christian Fellowship. Dr. Bob declared that A.A.’s basic ideas came from their study of the Good Book. He professed that the Book of James, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 were “absolutely essential” to the program for the cure of alcoholism. Of the Twelve Steps, while declaring that he had nothing to do with writing them, he said that, when simmered to the essence, they involved the principles of “love and service.” And he assured all, at the close of his personal story: “Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!”


The Dr. Bob Core Library
North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury, Vermont

• The Great Awakening of 1875
• The Smith Family – Judge Walter P., Susan A., and Robert H.
• The boyhood home and birthplace of Dr. Bob
• North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury
• Sunday school and prayer meetings
• Christian Endeavor Society
• Young Men’s Christian Association
• Revivals, Gospel Meetings, Evangelism, Conversions
• The Fairbanks family of St. Johnsbury
• Fairbanks Museum
• Athenaeum (Town Library)
• Vermont Congregationalism
• The Village as Dr. Bob saw it in his youth
• The Town of St. Johnsbury
• St. Johnsbury Academy
• Complete set of A.A. history titles by Dick B.
• The Original A.A. Program organized by Bill and Bob in Akron
• Books about Dr. Bob
• A.A. Conference Approved Literature
• Books about Bill Wilson, Lois Wilson, Dr. Bob, Anne Smith, Dr. Silkworth, Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Dr. Frank Buchman, Clarence Snyder, Sister Ignatia, Fr. Dowling, Alcoholics Anonymous, Criticisms and alternatives, healing, devotionals, conversions, A.A. history, A.A. literature
• The Sixteen Well-Springs of A.A. Principles and Practices
• Items from the Dennis Wayne Cassidy Memorial A.A. History Collection
__________________________________________________ ____________________________

The Eulogy for Robert Holbrook Smith, M.D., delivered by
Dr. Walter F. Tunks, Rector, St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Akron, Ohio

Dr. Tunks stated the following as he closed the Eulogy:

Here is the lesson of his life. God can use human weaknesses to demonstrate His power. No man need stay the way he is. With God’s help he can throw off the chains of any enslaving habit and be free again to be what God wants him to be. His monument is not the money he left in the bank, but the gratitude in the hearts of so many men and women who owe more than they can ever repay to his example.

O God we thank Thee for the life and service of Thy dear servant, Dr. Bob, whom we remember at Thy altar this day. Bless and prosper the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, in whose founding he played such an all important part. Prosper the work of this organization that it may reclaim the lives of many who are ashamed of their own weakness. This we ask in the name of Him who taught us that no failure ever need be final--our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
__________________________________________________ ____________________________

Gloria Deo

Dick B., PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837; (808) 874 4876; dickb@dickb.com; http://DrBob.info; http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml; http://www.dickb-blog.com.