Pauline Friedman Phillips, 1918–2013

The ‘Dear Abby’ columnist who counseled millions

For more than four decades, Abigail Van Buren—the pen name of Pauline Friedman Phillips—was a confessor, friend, and truth-teller to millions of newspaper readers. In her daily “Dear Abby” column, she dispensed snappy, often saucy, words of wisdom on everything from love and marriage to medicine and mothers-in-law. When one letter-writer asked what would cure her husband’s wandering eye, Dear Abby had the answer: “Rigor Mortis.” Another reader wanted to know if birth control pills were tax deductible. “Only if they don’t work,” she replied. And when a young man named Don asked how he could get his girlfriend of a year to say “Yes,” Abby responded: “What’s the question?”

“The improbable saga of ‘Dear Abby’ began in 1955 when Phillips was an affluent homemaker in Hillsborough, Calif., with time on her hands,” said the Los Angeles Times. Her identical twin sister, Eppie Lederer, who’d just been hired by the Chicago Sun-Times to take over the successful Ann Landers column, asked for her help responding to the flood of letters. “My stuff was published,” Phillips said, “and it looked awfully good in print.” So good that when the Sun-Times banned Lederer from sending readers’ letters out of the office, Phillips decided to start a column of her own. In 1956 she was hired by the San Francisco Chronicle, took on the pseudonym Abigail Van Buren—combining the names of a biblical prophetess and the eighth U.S. president—“and never looked back,” said USA Today.

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