By Dan M.
Sam Shoemaker was another non-alcoholic who was instrumental in the development of the AA program. In Bill’s words, “The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford group and directly from Sam Shoemaker…and from nowhere else.”
Samuel Moor Shoemaker was born on December 27, 1893, in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended boarding school in Rhode Island and Princeton University. In 1917, he went to China to open a branch of the YMCA and teach business classes for Princeton. Here he met Frank Buchman, founder of the Oxford Group, upon which many of the AA principles were based. Sam later traveled with Buchman to Europe, the Middle East, and India, where they performed missionary work similar to their work in China.
Ordained an Episcopal Priest in 1921, Shoemaker became rector of Calvary Church in Manhattan, where he built Calvary House, which served as a hostel and where Ebby T. stayed for a time. He also ran Calvary Mission, a place for “the down-and-out,” which Bill W. visited in 1934, near the end of his drinking. After his fourth time in Townes Hospital, now sober for good, Wilson attended Oxford Group meetings for drunks at Calvary Rescue Mission. It was here and at Townes that he found the men who would attend the first meetings that would become Alcoholics Anonymous. Although AA would break with the Oxford Group for a number of reasons, including their aggressive evangelism, Bill W. and Sam Shoemaker would remain good friends.
Shoemaker spoke at the International Convention of 1955, held in St Louis. Bill said of his speech, “With all his vigor and power of speech, Sam nevertheless kept himself right down to size. Here was a man quite as willing to talk about his sins as about anybody else’s. He made himself a witness of God’s power and love just as any AA might have done.” Sam Shoemaker died in October of 1963. In the words of Bill W, “He was one of AA’s indispensibles…AA owes a debt of timeless gratitude for all that God sent to us through Sam and his friends in the early days of AA infancy.”
Dan M.’s home group is Fremont Men’s Stag, which meets on Monday nights at 7 at Irvington Presbyterian Church and online: 187 927 449 pc: 774746
