1973 Lois's round-the-world trip

"In an echo of their 1950 visit to Europe, Lois W. sets out on a nine-week trip around the world a year after Bill's death. Her traveling companion is Evelyn C., an early volunteer at the Al-Anon Clearing House and later a staff member at the Al-Anon World Service Office. During their journey the women meet with members of A.A. and Al-Anon in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Honolulu.  In Lois Remembers, Lois will write that "Seeing and feeling the loving devotion and oneness of A.A. and Al-Anon around the world did much to submerge in an overwhelming sea of gratitude my sense of personal loss.""

(AAWS Inc)

1952 The arrival of Al-Anon

"In loosely organized Family Groups, loved ones of A.A. members had gathered together and shared their experiences since the Fellowship's earliest days. At Bill W.'s urging, his wife Lois moves to create a separate fellowship that will formalize these meetings. With Anne B., who had initiated a Family Group in Westchester County, New York, Lois sends a letter to 87 such groups suggesting that they unite under the name of Al-Anon. The response is positive, and Al-Anon Family Groups is born. In January 1952 Lois and Anne shift the growing organization's office from Stepping Stones to the 24th Street Clubhouse in Manhattan."

(AAWS Inc) 

(see here)

1935 Bill and Lois join the Oxford Group

"Following Bill W.'s spiritual awakening at Towns Hospital (late 1934), he and wife Lois [Lois Wilson née Burnham] join the Oxford Group - a nondenominational movement whose tenets are based on the "Four Absolutes" of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love - and begin to attend meetings at Calvary House, behind Manhattan's Calvary Episcopal Church there. Bill is inspired by the charismatic rector Rev. Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, who emphasizes one-on-one sharing and guidance."

(AAWS Inc)