One Drunk to Another Court of Last Resort
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DOLDER GRAND HOTELZÜRICH CUNARDBERENGARIA NAIROBI CAVENDISH HOTELLONDON GENÈVE
Illustration · A steamer trunk in a front hall, pasted with labels from Zurich, the Berengaria, London, Nairobi and Geneva, with a felt hat on its lid. Not drawn from a photograph.

Court of Last Resort

Meet Rowland

A mill family’s eldest son who went to Carl Jung for a cure, found the Oxford Group instead, and stood up for Ebby T. in a Vermont court.

“I had no news from Rowland H. anymore and often wondered what has been his fate.”

Dr. Carl Jung, answering Bill W., January 30, 1961 · The Language of the Heart, 1988

Rowland H. was born in 1881 into a Rhode Island family of woolen mills, chemical works and good causes. He went to Yale, ran the family’s businesses, sat in the state senate and served in the war, and by 1925 his drinking was a worry to them all.

In 1926 he went to Zurich to see Carl Jung. In the ten years that followed came a safari, a hospital bed in Africa, spinal taps in New York, a tile works in New Mexico, a lay therapist from Boston, and the Oxford Group. In 1934 he stood up in a Vermont courtroom for a drunk the Group had taken on, Ebby T., and that fall Ebby carried its message to Bill W.

AA’s books tell his story under a first name and an initial, and put his time with Jung around 1931. He never joined AA. He drank again in 1936, and nobody has found that he drank after. He died at his desk in 1945.

This is his story in seven parts and Legacy, from Peace Dale to Waterbury. It’s built from Cora Finch’s and Richard Dubiel’s work in the family’s papers, Yale’s obituary record, and what Ebby and Bill W. remembered; where they disagree, these pages say so.

Start with 1 · Roy

His life at a glance

  1. 1881Born October 29 in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, the eldest of five children of a woolen-mill family.
  2. 1903Graduates from Yale, where he sang in the glee club and the college choir.
  3. 1910Marries Helen Hamilton Campbell in Chicago on October 5. They will have four children.
  4. 1915Sits in the Rhode Island senate for the 1915–16 session.
  5. 1918Commissioned a captain in the Chemical Warfare Service. His father dies.
  6. 1920Joins the investment bankers Lee, Higginson & Co. in New York, and the founding board of Allied Chemical and Dye.
  7. 1926Sees Carl Jung in Zurich, from May to July.
  8. 1928A religious awakening in a hospital in East Africa; weeks later, drinking again in London.
  9. 1929Buys land at La Luz, New Mexico, and starts a tile and pottery works. He and Helen divorce, and remarry in 1931.
  10. 1933A lay therapist from Boston, Courtenay Baylor, begins working with him.
  11. 1934Stands up for Ebby T. in a Vermont court and brings him into the Oxford Group.
  12. 1935Gives his testimony in Frederick, Maryland, and goes to Geneva with the Group’s international team.
  13. 1936Joins the Episcopal Church. Drinks again that summer in New Mexico.
  14. 1939The Big Book tells his story without his name.
  15. 1940Becomes executive vice-president of The Bristol Company, instrument makers in Waterbury, Connecticut.
  16. 1944His eldest son is killed in service. His second son is lost at Okinawa the next March.
  17. 1945Dies at his desk on December 20, at 64.

Walk through his story

Each part has a short story, a one-minute audio stop, and a closer look for anyone who wants to go deeper. Read them in order, or start anywhere.

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