Pauline Friedman Phillips, aka Abigail Van Buren, aka Dear
Abby has died at the age of 94 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s
disease.
Phillips’ column competed for
decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister,
Esther Friedman Lederer. The two columns were very different; Ann Landers' responses were homey and sweet, while Abby was quick with a one-liner. But one thing Abby was very clear about was being gay-friendly, and
she made no bones about it, no matter what letters came her way,
In a 1998 interview she remarked: “Whenever I say a kind
word about gays, I hear from people, and some of them are damn mad. People
throw Leviticus, Deuteronomy and other parts of the Bible to me. It doesn’t
bother me. I’ve always been compassionate toward gay people.”
She gave a lot of advice, made a lot of jokes, and made me
smile from time-to-time when I read her column back in the day. But the one
letter that made me smile most, I never actually read first-hand, but I read
about it sometime in the last couple of years.
It seems she was responding to a writer who was worried
about a gay couple that was moving in across the street and wanted to know
what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.
Dear Abby replied, "You could move."
RIP Abby.
Loves that answer.
ReplyDeleteShe was a good person, and the take away is when you are good to others, and use common sense, people remember you fondly.
ReplyDeleteI first read her column because it was featured with the comics, word jumbles and whatnot. Maybe around age 8 is when I first read her, and didnt stop until a few years ago. She was a wonderful person, with a great heart and love for lgbt humans. Thank you for posting of her passing, as I managed to miss that.
ReplyDelete