From the Archives

Hello to all and Happy Holidays!

I hope you enjoyed our Illinois AFG State Convention in October. Jane and I were happy to show you a portion of our Archives, and movies about Lois W., Anne B. and the “Pioneers” Henrietta S. and Margaret D. Henrietta became first General Secretary of Al-Anon, and Margaret the first Editor of The Forum.

There is so much history and material that it requires an effort to focus on one topic. Something I would like to share with you this month is the history of the daily reader “One Day At   A Time”. This book amazingly was written in about a year by one woman, Alice B., Chairman of the Literature Committee. She was a self – taught writer. Every day for one year in 1967, she would sit in a cubby hole with an old typewriter. She just wrote whatever inspired her. She poured herself into ODAT at the age of seventy-two. It was published in 1968 and went on to sell millions of copies and be translated into several languages.

Anyone reading this book would think that it was the combined work of several writers well trained in various genres of literature. There are quotations from Psalms, Romans, Isiah, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare, Proust, Thomas A’ Kempis, Jonathon Swift, Thomas Merton, and Kahlil Gibran .Our Legacies are woven into the fabric of her writing. It has helped generations of readers.

Lois wrote an inscription in the 1972 edition of ODAT.

To Alice, the transcriber (for I know a Power greater than ourselves is the author) of this book. With all gratitude and love, Lois.

We are in the process of writing a new daily reader on Diversity. Perhaps you would like to contribute something? See the al-anon.alateen.org website for further information on this and other works in progress . Go to the Members Site tab and hit “Send your sharing.”

In Service,

Archives Coordinator
Illinois North, Panel 55