Timeline for District 14 History

Information comes from sources in parentheses, or from a number of sources.

1936--James D. ("J.D.") H got sober in Akron, Ohio, as A.A. No. 10 (handout found in archives)

1938--J.D. H and his wife came from Akron to this area, two years into his sobriety. (Bob E)

1939--J.D. visited Dr. Joe W, copy of the new book "Alcoholics Anonymous" in hand, but the doctor wasn't interested.  (Bob E)

1940--he made a second visit to the doctor, who was more willing, this time in jail.  (Bob E)
       --4/23, the first meeting of what became the Tristate Group, oldest meeting in Indiana.
          (http://www.aamuncie.org/Significant_April_Dates_.html)  They would meet in J.D. and      
          Rhoda's home, 420 S. Denby (the house used as the background picture for this blog), on                    Tuesdays, the same day the group still meets.  (handout found in archives)
       --8/18, Dr. Joe died, leaving Dr. Clifford R., his partner who had also gotten sober       
          in A.A., and J.D. as "the key A.A. Leaders in Evansville" (handout found in archives)
       --10/28, "The first A.A. group in Indianapolis was founded by Doherty S. after
          contact with J.D. H in Evansville."  (handout found in archives)

1941--visit to Evansville by a doctor from Akron, probably Dr. Bob, written about in the Evansville               Press, 10/27

1950--Dr. R died 9/8 (handout found in archives)

1951--J.D. H returned to Akron (handout found in archives)

1956--Eastside Group registered 1/23 (GSO)

1960--Joe H. got sober.  (Bob M)
        --Tristate Convention started.  (Bill S)

1961--Tri-State Group registered 1/30 (GSO)
        --J.D. H, co-founder of AA in Evansville, passed 5/27 (Akron Beacon-Journal)

1966--Joe H. bought the building at Columbia and Linwood, and started the clubhouse.  (Bob M)

1967--Bob M. got sober.  (Bob M)

1973--We Are Not Saints Group registered 6/4 (GSO)

1974--Regina Group registered 8/13 (GSO)

1978--Jimmy D. and others helped start the Central Office.  (Bob M, Pat R?)
        --Sunday Morning Step Group registered 7/6 (GSO)
        --First Edition Group registered 8/2 (GSO)
        --Stone House Group registered 12/22 (GSO)

1979--New Hope East Group registered 10/29 (GSO)

1980--INCYPAA started by Chuck A and Tony C, of southern Indiana AA (Tony C)

1981--Saturday Morning Group (St. Boniface) registered 10/1 (GSO, Tom R)

1984--Breakfast Discussion Group registered 6/6 (GSO)
        --Wansford Group registered 11/26 (GSO)

1985--Women's Resource Group registered 12/4 (GSO)

1986--The Smile City group was started in Mt. Vernon by Jerry H. and Malcolm W, registered 5/6.                (Bill S, Jerry H, GSO)

1987--C & L Noon Group registered 4/23 (GSO)
        --Safeway Group registered 6/29 (GSO)
        --Johnson Hall Group registered 9/1 (GSO)
        --Harmony Way Group registered 10/19 (GSO)

1988--Women's Anonymous Group registered 6/17 (GSO)

1989--The first Old Stone club started.  (newsletter?)
        --Friday Night McCurdy Group registered 1/10 (GSO)
        --Thursday Grapevine Group registered 7/18 (GSO)

1990--Way of Life Group registered 2/20 (GSO)
        --Thursday Night Step and Traditions Group registered 7/18 (GSO)
        --Old Stone Speaker Group registered 12/7 (GSO)
        --C&L Sunday 7am meeting started (Donnie S)
        --Chuck A carried flag in International Convention, in Seattle (Chuck A)

1991--Saturday Morning Group registered 2/1 (GSO)
        --Monday Night Women's A.A. Group registered 4/10 (GSO)
        --Sun Night Old Stone Club Group registered 6/10 (GSO)
        --Big Book Study Group registered 6/28 (GSO)
        --Sunday Morning Gratitude Group registered 9/30 (GSO)

1992--Rule 62 Group registered 1/15 (GSO)

1993--Young People for Freedom Group registered 1/22 (GSO)
        --There is a Solution Group registered 3/24 (GSO)
        --Monday Through Saturday Noon Group registered 5/20 (GSO)
        --Primary Purpose Group registered 8/9 (GSO)

1994--Old Stone 2 opened (Mike H)
        --Rebos Group registered 2/3 (GSO)
        --Friday Night B/B Nomads Group registered 2/23 (GSO).
        --K.I.S.S. Group registered 7/1 (GSO)
        --Fairway Group registered 11/10 (GSO)

1995--Step Sisters Group registered 1/1 (GSO)
        --Health Matters A.A. Group registered 3/7 (GSO)
        --Men's Works Group II registered 3/14 (GSO)
        --Step Climbers Group registered 4/3 (GSO)
        --Young Peoples Rule 62 Group registered 8/1 (GSO)
        --Breaking Group registered 9/19 (GSO)

1996--Oasis Group registered 1/31 (GSO)
        --Noon Saturday Beginners Group registered 12/6 (GSO)

1997--Poseyville Big Book Study Group registered 11/5 (GSO)

1998--Jim C went on to "the meeting in the sky"
        --The Big Book Comes Alive Group registered 6/16 (GSO)
        --101 Group registered 7/21 (GSO)
        --4th Dimension Group registered 9/1 (GSO)
        --Recovering Support Group registered 9/26 (GSO)
   
1999--Old Stone 3 opened (Mike H)
        --Unity Group registered 1/7 (GSO)
        --Challengers Group registered 1/10 (GSO)
        --Men's Pocket of Enthusiasm Group (MPEG) registered 2/18 (GSO)
        --Cross Pointe Group registered 7/7 (GSO)
        --New Harmony Group registered 7/7 (GSO)

2000--Annual Hog Roast registered (Chris K)

2001--Unity Recovery Group registered 5/4 (GSO)
        --Tuesday Lunch Group registered 6/20 (GSO)
        --Cross Street 12 and 12 Study Group registered 7/31 (GSO)
        --New Saturday Beginners Group registered 12/6 (GSO)

2002--Third Tradition Group registered 1/2 (GSO)
        --R.A.W. Group registered 8/16 (GSO)

2003--Grupo La Fe Group registered 1/4 (GSO)
        --Sisters of Sobriety Group registered 1/14 (GSO)

2004--Sober Cafe opened (Trey C, Jim N)
        --Focus on Sobriety Group registered 1/4 (GSO)
        --Angels of the Round Table Group registered 3/19 (GSO)
        --Beginner Orientation Group registered 9/5 (GSO)
        --Weds Night Closed AA Group registered 10/13 (GSO)

2005--Lunch Bunch Group registered 4/19 (GSO)
        --Thumpers Group registered 6/12 (GSO)
        --Newcomers in Sobriety Group registered 11/4 (GSO)

2006--Monday Night Get it Right Group registered 2/20 (GSO)
        --Sunday Noon Group registered 4/23 (GSO)
        --Hope and Healing Group registered 5/2 (GSO)

2007--Go to Any Length II Group registered 1/1 (GSO)
        --Founders Group registered 7/1 (GSO)
        --Women in Sobriety Group registered 8/7 (GSO)
        --Pass It On Group registered 10/20 (GSO)
        --East Side Discussion Group registered 11/6 (GSO)

2008--Evansville Northside Group registered 8/25 (GSO)

2009--Sobriety on Saturday Group registered 5/2 (GSO)
        --G.R.O.W. (Grateful Recovering Outstanding Women) Group registered 5/5 (GSO)
        --By the Book Group registered 11/4 (GSO)

2010--TGIS (Thank God I'm Sober) Group registered 11/1 (GSO)

2012--Women's Happy Hour Group registered 7/9 (GSO)
        --LGBT and Allied Group registered 10/23 (GSO)

2015--John G. passed

2017--Bob M. celebrated 50 years of sobriety

2018--Bob M. celebrated 51 years of sobriety

Oral history interviews: Bob M on C&L and more

(conducted at C&L in the second floor meeting room, I believe in November 2016.  Bob celebrated 50 years of sobriety in the room downstairs about 11 months later--October 2017!)

I heard that they had an AA meeting at the community center, and I needed it then.  But, you know, I had no idea.  But I was curious about it.  I remember being curious about it, but I was afraid to check it out.  I was only 17, 18 years old--my senior year.  I was already having trouble. already was into major trouble.

Anyway, I’m not sure how long they continued to meet at the community center.  I think the group split, and the original group went down to the little building right next to the Bell telephone building,  down at the corner of 5^th and Court.  I think the original group met there, and the group split off around the time Joe came in.

And they started meeting at Harpo's tavern, down on Division Street.  There were two doors to Harpo's.  I knew Harpo's well.  As you faced it, the door to the right took you into the bar downstairs.   The door to the left took you up some enclosed stairs, and they had an AA meeting upstairs.  It was a pretty good-sized hall. 

AA used to be so hard to find.  It was really anonymous.  They kept it anonymous, and you can understand why:  the stigma was something else.  And even after a person would get sober, a lot of times they’d lose their job.  If the lawyer found out they were in AA, they’d fire them--couldn’t have "drunks" working for them.

But anyway, they used to have dinners, I think once a month they had a dinner above Harpo's, and then in 66, Joe bought this place, and it was a mess.  He was a carpenter, and a darn good one, and he started working on it, and they started having meetings here.

Finally, at the tail end of my drinking, I was so ashamed that I wouldn’t go home, and I was out there.  This friend finally told my wife that her mother had been sober for 15 or 20 years.   She was one of the first women in Evansville. This was quite a wealthy family.  She finally told her, and she gave her Joe H’s telephone number--not her mother’s, Joe Hayden’s telephone number.  But she got it from her mother.  

Shortly after that happened, I finally hit bottom.  I had called her and said "I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I gotta try something; I’m dying out here."  Winter was coming on.  It was October.  I'd been on the street once before, and I knew I wasn’t strong enough to make it.  I had acute alcohol poisoning,  and I was close.  I almost died.

Anyway, I called her and told her I had to try something.  She said, "You really mean that?"   And I said, "Yeah, I’m dying out here."  And she said, "If you really mean that, come on home."  I hadn’t seen her in 5 or 6 months, and she said, "However, there’s gonna be two guys from AA."  She called Joe, and Joe said, "Are you calling for help, or is he?"  And he said, "If he ever calls for help, I’ll be there.  Call me any time, day or night."  

As it turned out, he couldn’t come that morning.  It was a Sunday morning.  He was a devout Catholic, very active in the Catholic Church, and he couldn’t come.  But two guys came who couldn’t have been two better guys for me.

That’s the way I found it.  You couldn’t find it.  They did have a number in the phone book, but how many drunks do you know who are gonna look in the phone book for AA?  We had an answering service, and that's the way we tried to carry the message.  Some people, usually families, would call, and we would tell them, "Well, if this person calls and expresses a desire, call and we’ll come," and we'd make 12th Step calls through that.  That was about the only way to carry the message.

Joe was very interested in trying to carry the message, trying to get the word out, and we had all kinds of projects that we would do.  Half this group took doctors, and another half took preachers.  We’d call on them.  Joe was very active in trying to get the message out, and consequently, he was not popular.  

That was the split.  They wanted to keep it anonymous.  They did keep it anonymous for a lot of years.  When I started, there were three meetings here a week:  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night.  Monday night was closed, and they had an Al-Anon meeting upstairs here.  It had been two bedrooms up here, two little old bedrooms, and that’s where they had it.  But eventually, they tore the wall out and made it one room.  But Al-Anon would meet on Monday night, and they met on Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock. 

Kenny B and I started a meeting on Wednesday morning, at 11 o'clock, at the same time the Al-Anons met, for people working nights.  But there were only about four of us that attended that meeting.  Kenny and I, and a man named Gene C was a great guy.  He was unemployed at the time.  He lived on Pigeon Creek in a houseboat, or he had, and they’d run everybody off of Pigeon Creek.  Gene--he had no education, hardly, but boy, he was a skilled carpenter and a great guy.  

And a guy named Eddie--Eddie’s still around, and I can’t think of Eddie’s last name, but Eddie comes to this meeting occasionally.  He’s been sober a good while.  He had a slip, but he’s been sober a good while.  He’s one of the few guys I’ve ever known that had a slip with a lot of sobriety, and was able to make it back and stay sober.  

Most of the people--if they had any length of sobriety and then slip, it takes them.  Quick.  I had a friend up in Tell City who'd been sober maybe 28 years.  He went back out, and he was dead within 14 months.  Unbelievable.  

The ones who slip--mostly they quit going to meetings.  They forget a day at at time.  This is the only place I ever heard of a day at a time.  And that’s all you got, really.  In my opinion, once you quit working a daily program, you’re in trouble.  It’s just a matter of time.  At least that’s the way I feel about it.  That's one of the main reasons I keep coming back--for my own sobriety.  However, I do feel a debt of gratitude, too.  Someone was here when I got here.  

A lot of people have gotten sober, and they’ve left.  Most of them leave and go to church, get real active in church, and get holier than thou, and they forget where they came from, in my opinion.  Some of them died sober, but most people, if they quit a daily program, it's just a matter of time--they’re gonna relapse.  At least, that’s been my experience.  

I was really active in service work when I first got sober, and anything Joe asked me to do, I’d do.  I started a meeting out at old Clearview Mental Hospital.  It didn't last very long--they shut the hospital down.  And I’d been locked up in that darn place--that’s why Joe asked me to start a meeting out there.  The year before I got sober, I got locked up out there.  I was there two weeks and conned my way out.  Supposed to be there a month.  

But anyway, the next meeting that I know of was on Sunday night here.  We started a Wednesday morning meeting, then we started a Sunday night meeting, and it was a 12 and 12 meeting.   It was a small meeting.  At one point we had a good group coming to that.

And then we just slowly added meetings every night.  From a period of '67 until about '72, '73, I believe it was '72 that this group split.  This group was humongous by then.  We were meeting every night, and the only closed meetings were Monday and Wednesday.  Monday was a speaker meeting.  Well, so was Wednesday and Friday.  And they were all speaker meetings.  Wednesday and Friday were open speaker meetings. 

At that time the neighbors didn’t want us here.  The neighbors were upset that we were here.  You know alcoholics, especially recovering alcoholics, are loud, laughing, carrying on.  And we’re meeting here three nights a week!

And to have a key to this place was really an honor.  There were just a few of us that had a key.  So I think we’ve lost some things.  But I also think we’ve gained a lot of things.  And I think as long as we stick with the Traditions, we'll be okay.  

Handout article on District 14 history

Sharing the Gift of Recovery in District 14, by Chad P

One of the authors of “Pass It On,” the biography of Bill W, wrote that our co-founder “showed us how to receive the gift of life.” Bill himself might have said that the other co-founder, Dr. Bob, showed us how to share it. In Akron, the two men started working with other alcoholics, and one of them was J.D. H, who came to Evansville in 1938, and helped start AA here—the first group in Indiana, and possibly one of the oldest in the world.

That didn’t happen for two years, though, and before that, J.D. was having meetings with his wife, who he said “is not an alky,” but who “stood solidly back of” him. She told him that he’d find someone if he just kept looking, and that promise began to come true in 1939. He told his story to a doctor who referred him to another one, Joe W. Armed with a freshly printed Big Book, J.D. went to visit him, but got turned away.

The next year, he found the doctor a more willing and captive audience—he’d gotten locked up because of his alcoholism, and could finally see that he had it. Like Bill and Dr. Bob, the two men started working with other drunks quickly, and in April of that year, 1940, started the first AA group in Indiana: the Tristate Group.

The house where it started, J.D.’s at 420 S. Denby, is no longer with us, but, as noted in “Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers,” the group still meets on the same night, Tuesday, that it started. It meets at St. Boniface Church now, and the meeting room has such a sense of history, with the decades of sobriety in the room and the old wood of the room itself, that it’s easy to imagine the meeting starting there.

During the 20 years that followed that start, a lot happened for the closeknit group members and for AA worldwide. The Evansville alcoholics who did find recovery there may have gotten to meet Dr. Bob during a 1941 visit—“the strangest convention in Evansville’s history,” according to the Evansville Press article about it. Bill W is rumored to have come here, too, possibly during his trips to experience AA’s growth and to find support for the 12 Traditions, before they were accepted in 1950, then possibly the 12 Concepts, accepted 5 years later.

This “big small town,” as Pat R calls Evansville, and the surrounding area gained the name District 14, within Area 23. At the same time, alcoholics looking for help, who couldn’t think to look in the phone book, would have had trouble—“they kept it anonymous,” Bob M said, understandably, because “the stigma was something else.”

A little way into the 1960’s, though, that started to change, and maybe the date was in the year 1960 itself, when Joe H got approached, just like Bill W had, by someone who could see he needed help. This time, though, it was a son. He reached his dad just in time, before Joe could go through with his suicide plan. That’s where Joe’s journey into a new life began.

A few years in, he helped that happen for a lot of other alcoholics by buying the building at Columbia and Linwood, fixing it up, and working with others to get meetings going there. Bob M, who was part of it all, remembered “we just slowly added meetings,” and it became what it stayed for years: the place where pretty much every AA member in the area stopped by. It still has several meetings each day, and a real sense of welcome.

A number of special events happened in the 1970’s and ‘80’s, and each one could probably get its own article. Bob M remembers it as 1978 that the Central Office got started, through the efforts of a couple of men in particular, and after a lot of discussion. It didn’t start easily, but it has become a valuable resource for members across a wide area. It not only supplies books and other materials as groups need them, but gives a home to the call service, a storage place for the archives, and a space where members from different places can meet.

A few years after that, the Smile City Group started in Mt. Vernon Indiana—Jerry H, one of the co-founders, helped that happen when he was all of six months sober, encouraged by Jim C, who said it would happen “if the good Lord” willed it. It has lasted for over 30 years now. The Harmony Way group, started shortly after that, has lasted almost that long.

It was at the end of that decade, though, that another very special event happened for the district: the opening of another club. According to Jerry, Jim C was “the spark plug” behind that idea, that also took off with the efforts of Pat M, Jerry L, and, along the way, many more. It went through three versions, each with its own building. In Old Stone 1, members could gather for a more official meeting or possibly pop down to talk with Jim C, who Jerry said had his apartment a floor below.

After that building got demolished, the club was moved into St. Mary’s Church, and Old Stone 2 lasted long enough to help plenty of alcoholics. It moved into the current location, Old Stone III, maybe for good—it’s a building designed for and dedicated to recovery, with a number of rooms for meetings, and plenty of special events to attract happy crowds.

And “happy crowds” might describe the lay of the land here in District 14 now—plenty of meetings in those two club houses and other locations, over 90 listed for Evansville alone. Anyone reaching out for help, like our Responsibility Declaration says, can find it any day of the week here. He or she might come to one of the places mentioned above, or to the Founder’s Group, Health Matters, MPEG, one of the Newburgh meetings—so many places where this journey of recovery can begin, or continue. It’s hard to leave one of those meetings, too, without a handshake, or more.

The gift of recovery is shared here, one day at a time, one drunk to another, like it started. Hopefully it will continue into the far future. Bob M, who hopefully will reach 50 years sober later this year, said it simply, like Dr. Bob would have loved: “We’ll just stick with the Traditions,” he said, and be okay.

Groups that are part of our history--Tristate Group

The group began meeting at J. D. and Rhoda's 420 S. Denby St. every Tuesday night. They later moved the meeting to Dr. W's and Dr. R's office, and then to a Presbyterian Church, where they met in one of the outbuildings (Dr. R was a member of the First Presbyterian Church). The group, which is today called the Tri-State Group, still meets in Evansville every Tuesday night. There is a letter from the New York A.A. office to "Joseph W." (Dr. Joe W) which is undated, but must have been written around the middle of May 1940. It says that a recent article in the Washington, D.C., Star was distributed by the United Press, one of the two major national press services, all across the country, and that this has produced two inquiries from Indiana. One is from Miss Katharine S., at the Beck Building on Spring Street in Jeffersonville, who wants someone to talk to her brother, who is a lawyer. She says that her brother "is working toward securing an appointment to the Supreme Court of Indiana. She says that he only has confidence in his own physician and I suggest that she get in touch with you and discuss the matter and then perhaps it would work out best if you spoke with his doctor first." The other was from C. P. B. in Huntington. He says "'I am interested in the problem of alcoholics as a victim and will be glad to hear from you as to what I can do to overcome same.'" The letter says that Dr. Joe's name and address has been sent to both parties. Joseph W. (Dr. Joe W) replied in a letter to Ruth Hock, the secretary at the New York A.A. office, on May 20, 1940. He told her that they had been holding meetings for about a month at that point, and we know that the first A.A. group in Evansville always met on Tuesday evenings, as it still does today, so the date of the first A.A. meeting in Indiana must have been April 23, 1940.

"I am very glad to get your letter and I am very glad to know you have referred the two people to our group. We would be very happy to handle any other that you might refer to us. We do have weekly meetings now being attended by 12 to 15 people. There are nine active members in our group and considering that we have only been going along about a month now in the organization work we feel that we are doing fairly well. "... I will report to you if either Mr. S. of Jeffersonville or Mr. B. of H[untington] reports to us. I am writing them a letter today extending to them an invitation to visit our group. "You will never know what great relief I have and what true happiness I get in working with other people who have had the same trouble."

A letter to Joseph E. W. from the New York A.A. office dated June 28, 1940, indicates that Dr. Joe had talked to Mr. S (presumably the lawyer in Jeffersonville, Indiana, mentioned in the earlier letter written around the middle of May). It links this with a reference to a visit Dr. Joe made to Louisville, Kentucky, which is right across the Ohio river from Jeffersonville.

"Glad to know you had an opportunity to talk with Mr. S, and was interested in the fact that you visited Louisville, KY. Do you make that trip very often? And if so, can you take any inquiries there? Please be frank about this for we have no desire to overburden you with A.A. inquiries to the detriment of your own affairs, and if you can't take them on we have complete faith that things will work out at the right time. "I took the liberty, however, of sending a Louisville inquiry to you today, advising him that if he could get to Evansville you would be glad to talk with him. He is H.H.H. He himself wrote asking for the names of members in Louisville and in the same mail we received a letter from his sister who advised that he had been contacted by A.A.s when he lived in Akron sometime ago but that he had refused to have anything to do with us at that time. He now seems very anxious which only goes to prove the old A.A. proverb -- 'If he isn't ready give old John Barleycorn time to get him ready.' "You might be interested in the fact that we now have 21 localities from coast to coast where A.A. meetings are held weekly, with another 20 localities where there are single individuals or a few who are attempting to get things started. You know how difficult it is to get any accurate figures on this thing but a rough guess brings us to close to 1,000 members. In our correspondence we use the round figure of over 600 men and women, to keep on the conservative side, and to keep to figures which we can more easily prove if challenged."

So the Evansville group was one of the first twenty-one A.A. groups established. If we look at a map of the United States, there were no other A.A. groups anywhere in the general area, so it became the center from which groups were formed, not only in most of the rest of Indiana, but also in southern Illinois and western Kentucky. The Evansville and Indianapolis groups also seem to have played an important role in the formation of the first A.A. group in Louisville, Kentucky. As we can see from the letter above, in June 1940, inquiries from Louisville to the New York A.A. office were being sent to Evansville as the closest established A.A. group.