Rogers Burnham: The Original Man Behind Bill W.

About the Book

This book is both a biography of Rogers Burnham, and a historical accounting of many Vermont influences upon the development of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program. These themes are interconnected, beginning when Rogers met Bill “Bill W” Wilson when they were children living a few miles apart in Vermont during many summers, starting around 1910. They became close friends, and as teenagers, Rogers was rather persistent in telling his elder sister, Lois, to pay more attention to Bill. Eventually, she did, which led to their marriage and Rogers becoming a lifelong influence as a brother-in-law.

About the Author

Leslie Brownson Cole, known as “Les”, was born in 1924 in Vermont and lived essentially all of his youth in a very small town called Arlington. He experienced the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1944 he began his adult education at Antioch College in Yellow Spring, Ohio and graduated with a joint degree in Sociology/Psychology. His major work career has been in the fi eld of Vocational Rehabilitation of handicapped individuals, with employment in State and Federal agencies over a continuous period of 44 years. Areas of work included client counseling, administration, program specialist, and drafting Federal Regulations. He also worked a few years as a county Juvenile Court Probation Offi cer and as a staff person in a private psychiatric hospital. After regular retirement in 1989, he became interested in the AA program and began his research for this book. This included two long visits to Vermont to investigate historical places, libraries, cemeteries, court records, and people...as well as study of selected archives held at the Wilson home Stepping Stones, in Katonah, NY. He now lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado