October 1945

Muncie:  The Automobile
in the City Park

Bruce C. (Muncie)



  The first A.A. meeting in Muncie was held in an automobile in a city park. This is not your usual story of how A.A. began. Ken H., one of the men in the car, was the founder of A.A. in that city, and the date was late October in 1945.

Muncie is located in central Indiana, sixty miles northeast of Indianapolis. The story of how A.A. began there was told by John F. at the 50th Anniversary Dinner in 1995. John said that "a man from Dayton, Ohio, met with a Ken H. from Muncie, Indiana, in a car in Heekin Park in Muncie about the third week of October in 1945. Ken H. stayed sober for 26 years before dying in 1970 or 1971."

The Ohio man successfully convinced Ken to try out the A.A. method of getting sober, Ken started the first A.A. group in Muncie, and the program, once established, has kept on growing and flourishing to this day. There are now 35 A.A. meetings in Muncie every week.

The first mention of Muncie in A.A. records actually occurred a few months before that. In the A.A. Grapevine for June 1945, in the Country-Wide News Circuit column, it was reported: 		 

  Indiana's latest A.A. venture, a clinic for alcoholics, also appears to be headed for success. The newly instituted Indiana Home, in Muncie, with an 18-bed capacity, had 6 patients during its first week of operation. Managed by A.A., the clinic not only gives alcoholics a six-day treatment but, like the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York, serves as a focal point for A.A. members to do 12th-step work, via visits to the patients who are being relieved of the jitters, and interesting them in the philosophy of A.A.  
  Editor:  Bruce C. has found a photograph of what was called the Home Hospital in Muncie, along with some information about it, in the Star Press Album of Yesteryear. The hospital was located in the city block bounded by Mulberry, Fifth, Jefferson and Sixth streets. It had been opened early in the twentieth century by a physician named George R. Andrews, and was called the Home Hospital because, as originally set up, the two principal attending physicians (Samuel P. Anthony and surgeon Charles Mix) lived on the hospital premises and were instantly available for emergencies at all times.

"The southside hospital included a school of nursing and was expanded several times through the 1920s gaining public support and operated by a board of trustees after Andrews became ill. It was supplanted by Ball Memorial Hospital which opened in 1929. The Mulberry Street building later housed a number of philanthropic and public offices, including the Center Township trustee, rationing boards during World War II and the Community Fund (a United Way predecessor)."

Bruce believes that the alcoholism treatment center mentioned in the Grapevine article was set up in 1945 in one part of this building on Mulberry Street, the one that had formerly been Muncie's Home Hospital. There are other people working on Indiana A.A. history who believe, however, that the Grapevine made a mistake when it said that this treatment center was located in Muncie, and that it was talking about the Indiana Home in Indianapolis (see the section on the Indiana Home in the material on the history of A.A. in Indianapolis). 		 
  The Grapevine contained other references to A.A. in Muncie and in the surrounding part of Indiana in the years that followed. The New Groups column in the June 1946 Grapevine listed Union City (east of Muncie, right on the Ohio border), and the October 1946 issue listed a new group in Muncie and one in Dunkirk (which is about sixteen miles northeast of Muncie).

The Country-Wide News Circuit section in the February 1947 Grapevine spoke of a major attempt to reach out to clergymen, physicians, and judges in Muncie, and make them aware of A.A. and its ability to get alcoholics sober: 		 

 
Hold Information Meeting

The Muncie, Ind., Mission Group has changed its name to the Muncie and Inter-County Group, although still meeting weekly at the Muncie Mission until a larger room can be found. Workers report a great need for A.A. work in Muncie and an attempt to meet a lack of information led to a meeting last month at the YWCA in Muncie with speakers from Dayton and Indianapolis, including a minister, priest, physician and an A.A. member. About 300 invitations were sent to clergymen, doctors, judges and others and about 250 copies of Medicine Looks at A.A. and the A.A. booklet were obtained for the meeting which is expected to result in better contacts for 12th Step work. 		 



The Growth of A.A. in Muncie


  After its beginning in the meeting in the automobile in a city park in October 1945, Muncie A.A. grew slowly, but there were two groups listed in the 1963-1964 directory of registered groups:

Muncie Inter City Group
GSR: Donald B.
Meeting Place: Wilson’s Restaurant
Day & Time: Monday 8:00p.m.

Muncie Group
GSR: Floyd H.
Meeting Place: Labor Temple
Day & Time: Saturday 7:30 p.m.

There then arose a period of rapid growth. If we look at the Muncie A.A. web site today (February 2005) we can see 35 meetings listed each week -- http://aamuncie.org -- with many of them held in either the Alno Club on 827 Riverside Avenue, or the Serenity Club on 1218 S. Brotherton Street. 		 


 
 
 
 

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