By Paula Schleis
Claudia Toney stands at the door to Mayflower Manor in downtown Akron Friday, welcoming visitors with a hearty “Congratulations!”
She doesn’t ask why they’ve come to see the historic apartment building where she lives.
They don’t ask why they’re being congratulated.
Some things are too obvious, and this, after all, is Founders Day weekend.
Upwards of 10,000 people from around the world are in town on their annual pilgrimage to celebrate the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous, a movement that has helped millions recover from addiction.
Toney knew the Mayflower was a key scene in the story of A.A. and took it upon herself to start greeting visitors in 1998.
“God said go on down there and help those people out,” she said. She’s manned the door on this weekend ever since.
“This is where it all started,” Toney says proudly as she motions for new arrivals to proceed up the steps to the building’s atrium.
That’s where they find a pay phone marking the spot where Bill Wilson — better known simply as “Bill W.” — made his fateful phone call in 1935, when the Mayflower was a hotel with a cocktail lounge.
“I’m a rum hound from New York, and I need help,” a desperate Bill W. said into the phone as he stared at the doors to the bar, fighting the urge to quench his destructive thirst.
The stranger on the other end of the phone was Henrietta Seiberling, the woman who would bring Bill W. and Dr. Robert Smith — a.k.a. “Dr. Bob” — together.
On Friday, Cheryl and Gloria, two A.A. members who flew to Akron from Los Angeles, made the Mayflower their first stop.
The trip “was one of the things on my bucket list,” said Cheryl, now 11 years sober. As a rule, A.A. members do not share their last names.
Gloria, 26 years sober, pointed to goose pimples on her arms as she nodded in agreement. “Me too. Before I die, I wanted to go to Founders Day.”
They knew A.A.’s history, as many members do.
Seiberling introduced Bill W. to Dr. Bob on May 13, 1935. Dr. Bob was also being consumed by alcoholism and she had been asking God how she might help him. She saw Bill W.’s phone call as an answer to her prayer. Perhaps these two men could find strength in each other.
She brought them together at her home, the Gate Lodge on the grounds of the Stan Hywet estate — another major attraction this weekend.
Stan Hywet employee Jamie Hale is standing at the door to the lodge Friday morning. At 11:30 a.m., the three-day weekend has barely begun but she’s already counted 83 visitors.
“Tomorrow will be crazy,” she said, looking forward to Saturday. The assignment is one most Stan Hywet employees are eager to help out with. While most events at the museum site focus on entertainment, “this one gets emotional. We know how much this one means to people.”
Inside the lodge, Bill from Euclid talks about coming to Founders Day for 15 years. It never gets old, he says.
“It recharges my batteries,” he said. “For me, it’s about friends and people who were broken at one time and are now in repair.”
A few steps behind him, taking in the lodge’s displays, Miguel from Lake County says it’s his first trip. He’s 60 days sober, and counting.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing Dr. Bob’s home,” he said.
That would be the house at 855 Ardmore Ave. in Akron’s Highland Square neighborhood, just a mile down the road, where the tenants of A.A. and its famed 12-step program were created.
Dr. Bob’s Home, a modest two-story house on a rumbling brick street, was named a national historic landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior last month.
Outside the historic structure, Bear from Amherst rests on a stone wall.
He remembers his first Founders Day 23 years ago, and his appreciation for it grows each year.
“I wasn’t as excited [the first year] because I didn’t really understand it,” he said. “I get so much more out of it now.”
He’s chatting with Steve from Lorain, another regular. Steve is waiting for friends from Ireland and Australia to arrive. It’s the one time they get together every year, to share stories and kinship.
“People come here from all over,” notes Jim from Elyria. It’s not even noon yet, and he’s already shook hands with people from Poland, Belgium and Key West, Fla.
The yard and street around Dr. Bob’s house is filled with a couple of hundred people chatting and laughing.
The tone is much more solemn a couple of miles away at Mount Peace Cemetery, where other visitors are paying respects to Dr. Bob’s final resting place.
Mike, Trapper and Dan, who rode their Harleys in from Traverse City, Mich., said a prayer over the grave, then stepped back and relaxed on their bikes to watch others make the procession.
Trapper calls attention to one man who approaches the tombstone and then breaks into tears. It’s an emotion he understands all too well.
“Alcohol took away all my dreams,” Trapper said. “Alcoholics Anonymous gave them all back.”
For a list of Founders Day events, visit http://foundersdayregistration.akronaa.org.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.