Ruth was the Office Manager for Honor Dealers, the company Hank P started and Bill W "worked" for in the early days of AA.
She served as Bill W's secretary from 1937 until her marriage in 1942.
Ruth typed the original manuscript of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and later answered the letters that started to flood in after 1941.
She was in California to see her daughter Laurie and her baby.
In a beautiful twist of history, Laurie was 1.5 years sober at the time - sober in a program her non-alcoholic mother helped found.
Listen to a letter from Ruth to Bill W written 11/10/1955:
(1 hr 16 min) (13.2 MB) (id#2272)