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.
Pauline Phillips, who wrote advice articles under the pen name Abigail Van Buren, died Wednesday in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at age 94.
Pauline's 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. Shortened to "Dear Abby" in newspapers, the name "Abigail" was taken from the wise woman in the Old Testament and "Van Buren" was one of her favorite presidents.
Phillips had suffered from Alzheimer's disease for years, but was still dishing out advice to readers as recently as 2002, though her daughter Jeanne took on co-authoring duties in the mid-1990s.
"I have lost my mother, my mentor and my best friend," Jeanne told TMZ in a statement. "My mother leaves very big high heels to fill with a legacy of compassion, commitment and positive social change. I will honor her memory every day by continuing this legacy."
Jeanne Phillips took the column over full time in August 2002, when the family announced that Pauline Phillips had Alzheimer's.
"Dear Abby" is the world's most widely syndicated column, having appeared in 1,400 newspapers with a daily readership of more than 110 million, the syndication service Universal Uclick said.
Her twin sister was also a famous advice columnist. Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman Lederer, who died at age 83 in 2002 of multiple myeloma, was the author of the newspaper column "Ann Landers."
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