(p. 193, 4th edition.)“The Story of Dave B., one of the founders of A.A. in Canada in 1944.”
Pioneers of A.A.
Dave’s date of sobriety was April 7, 1944. He was born on June 25, 1908, in Toronto, Canada, and spent his youth in Knowlton, Quebec. He married Dorothy Ford on September 1, 1929. They had three children and thirteen grandchildren.
In Montreal, just before World War II, a young physician interested in alcoholism, Dr. Travis Dancey, had tried to get Dave to read the Big Book while he was incarcerated in a mental institution. Dave, angry and rebellious, literally threw the Big Book at his would-be benefactor. Dr. Dancey was taken into the military service and when he returned in late 1944 and saw Dave, the latter was newly sober in A.A.
Dr. Dancey recalled that when he returned, Dave not only dragged him around to A.A. meetings, “but he had the effrontery to explain the spiritual principles of the program to me!” Dr. Dancey went on to become the first Class A. (nonalcoholic) trustee from Canada, serving from 1965-1974.
Dave was a tireless twelfth-stepper, who founded the first A.A. group in the Province of Quebec. He served as a Class B (alcoholic) Trustee from 1962 to 1964.
He died on December 9, 1984.
