Posted on 01/17/2013 3:05:27 PM PST by Borges
Pauline Phillips, better known to millions of newspaper readers as the original Dear Abby advice columnist, has died after a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease, her family said Thursday.
She died Wednesday in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at age 94. Phillips' columns were published in an era when newspaper readers began to prize straight-talking, pithy advice about marriages, children, jobs -- just about anything that troubled people.
Phillips wrote under the pen name of Abigail Van Buren, shortened to "Dear Abby" in newspapers. "Abigail" was taken from the wise woman in the Old Testament and "Van Buren" was one of her favorite presidents.
The first Dear Abby column appeared in 1956, and Phillips solely wrote the advice feature until 2000, when she and daughter Jeanne began sharing the byline.
Jeanne Phillips took the column over full time in August 2002, when the family announced that Pauline Phillips had Alzheimer's.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
RIP Dear Abby.
Dear Abby,
I feel like everyone I’ve ever depended on has died and left me alone. My mother died two years ago. Not long afterwards my father passed away and, just after that I lost both my sister any my wife in the same week. I’m always feeling like anyone I depend on is going to die. How can I get over this, Abby? It’s beginning to feel like you’re all I have left.
Signed,
Cursed by Death in Dallas
RIP. She received her full measure in life; what else can we hope for?
From good advice, to lefty advice, that column sure adapted to the 1970s quickly.
RIP.
As an only child, I was dismayed and disgusted when “Dear Abby” warned women to avoid men who were only children because they are selfish.That kind of ignorant advice was typical of her column. I,for one, wish her column had ended 50 years ago.
I tend to agree with her as they tend to be self absorbed
& petulant. :0)
I have an old book by Dear Abby, and you can see how her advice was conservative, and then instantly adopted the left’s agenda with feminism and accepting of new social positions.
It went from good advice to ‘life is too short for a bad marriage, move on’.
The sisters grew up in a religious Jewish home in Iowa, but became worldly and liberal.
RIP Abby.
RIP Abby.
And yet...
“She is survived by her husband of 73 years”
Aww.....
Actually, I thought she had already died. Not funny, but I guess when her daughter took over her column, I thought it was because she was deceased.
I lump personal advice columnists along with astrolgers as charlatans preying on the weak-minded.
Lot’s of lefties have long marriages, what is the point?
It’s just a contrast from her advice to give up on a marriage given at the first sign of problems.
The difference being that astrology is total bunk but good advice is good advice in any walk of life. It’s just a question of where it’s coming from.
www.dearmrsweb.com
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