AN UNHAPPY LIFE – Continued by Bob K for AA Beyond Belief
Ebby, an archetypal black sheep, was a slacker, a floater who never quite embraced adulthood. Ebby’s older brother “John Boyd Thacher II, was named for his illustrious uncle. He would prove to be a political and business superstar in the same mold . . . Not surprisingly, Jack Thacher was the family’s outstanding student at Albany Academy, a private school (which is locally referred to as AA!) Though (brothers) George and Thomas also did well. Jack was the secretary of the Beck Literary Society and played baseball, football, and hockey . . . Three of Ebby’s brothers attended Princeton, and Jack went on to earn a law degree at Albany Law School.” (Ebby, Mel B., pp. 19-20)
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Bill Wilson and Ebby Thacher met in Manchester, Vermont in 1910 or 1911. The Thachers had a large summer home there, and played golf at the private club, Ekwonak, founded by Robert Todd Lincoln, and George Thacher Sr. Lois’s father, Dr. Clark Burnham, was one of the top players at the club.
Contrarily, Bill Wilson lived in the humble village of East Dorset populated mainly by marble workers and their families. The population was perhaps 300. Excelling at baseball drew Bill into the circle of the sophisticated.
Ebby followed his brothers’ footsteps to the Albany Academy, but poor academic performance led to his parents’ decision to install him at the Burr & Burton Seminary in 1912. Bill Wilson had been a student there since 1909. The developing friendship between the two boys gained Bill some access into the society of the rich and famous, the very group with whom he aspired to rub elbows.
Ebby was back in Albany after a year, but he neither graduated nor went on to college. His disappointed father took him into the family business, had given him a menial job undoubtedly meant to teach him responsibility, discipline, and possibly gratitude. It was all too late, and in spite of some short-lived diligence, the prodigal son only learned to drink with his older fellow workers.
The Thacher company closed in 1922. The business had suffered some severe losses as the result of some ill-advised government contracts during WW I. Patriotism may have gotten the best of George Thacher Jr., and his corporation. The CEO had considerable assets apart from the failed company, and when George died in 1929, each son was left about $150,000, about 3 million in today’s money.
Ebby can be forgiven for losing about half of that in the stock market crash later that year. The remainder was frittered away in about 4 years of drunken extravagance. Ebby got sober through the Oxford Group, and carried the message of salvation through religious conversion to his old friend, Bill.
Falling Off The Wagon
One of the saddest days in Bill’s life and mine was the day Ebby got drunk after two years of sobriety. It seemed as if the bottom had fallen out of everything. Our first reaction was to wonder: since Ebby had faltered, can any alcoholic live a sober life to the end? But then we thought of Ebby’s recent behavior. He had begun to feel sorry for himself because he hadn’t a girl or a job. Although he went to Oxford Group meetings regularly, he was not enthusiastic about digging up new alcoholic prospects to work on . . . From then on Ebby had a most erratic career: periods of sobriety mixed with long periods of maudlin drunkenness. — Lois Remembers, p. 117
