Bill W.

Family tree of Bill W.

Inventor, Other

AmericanBorn William Griffith WILSON

Co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous

Born on November 26, 1895 in East Dorset, Vermont, USA , United States

Died on January 24, 1971 in Miami, Florida, USA

Family tree

Report an error

This form allows you to report an error or to submit additional information about this family tree: Bill W. (1895)

More information

Wilson was born in East Dorset, Vermont, at his parents' home and business, the Mount Aeolus Inn and Tavern. His paternal grandfather, William Wilson was an alcoholic who never drank after a conversion experience on Mount Aeolus. Both of Wilson's parents abandoned their child (his father never returned from a purported business trip, and his mother left to study osteopathic medicine). Bill and his sister were cared for by their maternal grandparents, Fayette Griffith and Ella Griffith, in their house. As a teen, Wilson showed determination, once spending months designing and carving a working boomerang. After initial difficulties, Wilson became the school's football team's captain and the principal violinist of its orchestra. Wilson also underwent a serious depression at the age of seventeen following the death of his first love, Bertha Bamford, from complications of surgery.



Wilson met his future wife, Lois Burnham, who was four years older than he, during the summer of 1913, while sailing on Vermont's Emerald Lake; two years later the couple became engaged. He entered Norwich University, but depression and panic attacks forced him to leave during his second semester. The next year he returned, but was soon suspended with a group of students involved in a hazing incident. Because no one would take responsibility, and no one would identify the perpetrators, the entire class was punished.

...   Wilson was born in East Dorset, Vermont, at his parents' home and business, the Mount Aeolus Inn and Tavern. His paternal grandfather, William Wilson was an alcoholic who never drank after a conversion experience on Mount Aeolus. Both of Wilson's parents abandoned their child (his father never returned from a purported business trip, and his mother left to study osteopathic medicine). Bill and his sister were cared for by their maternal grandparents, Fayette Griffith and Ella Griffith, in their house. As a teen, Wilson showed determination, once spending months designing and carving a working boomerang. After initial difficulties, Wilson became the school's football team's captain and the principal violinist of its orchestra. Wilson also underwent a serious depression at the age of seventeen following the death of his first love, Bertha Bamford, from complications of surgery.



Wilson met his future wife, Lois Burnham, who was four years older than he, during the summer of 1913, while sailing on Vermont's Emerald Lake; two years later the couple became engaged. He entered Norwich University, but depression and panic attacks forced him to leave during his second semester. The next year he returned, but was soon suspended with a group of students involved in a hazing incident. Because no one would take responsibility, and no one would identify the perpetrators, the entire class was punished.



The June, 1916, incursion into the U.S. by Pancho Villa resulted in Wilson's class being mobilized as part of the Vermont Guard and he was reinstated to serve. The following year he was commissioned as an artillery officer. During military training in Massachusetts, the young officers were often invited to dinner by the locals, and Wilson had his first drink, a glass of beer, to little effect. A few weeks later at another dinner party, Wilson drank some Bronx cocktails, and felt at ease with the guests and liberated from his awkward shyness; "I had found the elixir of life," he wrote. "Even that first evening I got thoroughly drunk, and within the next time or two I passed out completely. But as everyone drank hard, not too much was made of that."



© Copyright Wikipédia authors - This article is under licence CC BY-SA 3.0

 

Geographical origins

The map below shows the places where the ancestors of the famous person lived.

Loading... An error has occured while loading the map.