Archives Intergroup Report – October 2025

We will have 2 displays at Oldtimers Day on 10/18—one covering clubhouses and a second one honoring Horace S., one of the founders of Oldtimers Day. We will also have handouts on the Traditions which is the theme of this years OT day. We will also have material for District 23‘s Feast Fling event on 11/15. We continue to archive material for scanning and coordinate with the Tech committee. The 2 handouts are: #1 Dr. Bob’s Humility Prayer and #2 an excerpt from Dick B’s book entitled “The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth” which shows Anne Smith’s spiritual influence on the beginning of AA. She was Dr. Bob’s wife. OUR NEXT MEETING IS OCTOBER 25 AT 10:30 AT THE [CENTRAL OFFICE].

Inscription from a Plaque on Dr Bob’s desk—which to him best described:
Humility
“Perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble. It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.
“It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and pray to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble.”

3
Anne Smith’s Journal, 1933-1939

Dr. Bob’s wife, Anne Ripley Smith, joined the Oxford Group immediately after its 30 member “team” came to Akron, Ohio in January of 1933 at the behest of Harvey Firestone, Sr.

In company with Henrietta Seiberling, Clarace Williams, and Delphine Weber, Anne began attending Oxford Group meetings. Shortly Dr. Bob joined them and also started regularly attending.

As we mention in subsequent chapters, Henrietta Seiberling was a spearhead in the Oxford Group meetings involving Dr. Bob, Anne, T. Henry, and Clarace Williams; and Henrietta read all the Oxford Group literature of the 1930’s and a good many other books as well. When the meetings involving the “alcoholic squad of the Oxford Group,” and which Anne attended, were held at T. Henry’s home, there were tables in T. Henry’s basement furnace room containing Oxford Group literature which was made available to people attending the meetings. Anne Smith, therefore, had access to a good deal of information about Oxford Group books. Also, we recently learned that an additional Oxford Group team visited Akron in early 1934, as a follow-up on the 1933 witnessing events. Hence there was ample opportunity for Anne and Dr. Bob to learn of Oxford Group materials that were then in circulation.

Anne began, in 1933, recording in writing what she was hearing at Oxford Group meetings and what she was studying in the Bible and Christian literature. She discussed a number of the Oxford Group principles which later were to become at part of the A. A. program. Anne organized her ideas, had most of them typed up for her by her daughter, Sue Smith Windows, and assembled them in 64 pages of what we have called “Anne Smith’s Journal.” For further details, the reader is invited to read our title, Dick B., Anne Smith’s Journal: 1933-1939 (San Rafael, CA: Paradise Research Publications, 1994).

The important thing here is that Anne actually read to and taught alcoholics and their families from her spiritual journal. When alcoholics and their wives would come to the home of Dr. Bob and Anne at 855 Ardmore in Akron for what was jokingly called “spiritual pablum,” Anne obtained ideas for discussion from and then actually taught those present from the pages of her journal.

Terry G.