Abigail Van Buren biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips, better known by the pen name "Abigail Van Buren," was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 4, 1918. Nicknamed "Popo" at an early age, Van Buren grew up with identical twin sister Eppie Lederer, who would also go on to become a popular advice columnist, under the pseudonym "Ann Landers." The sisters were raised by Russian-Jewish immigrants: a father who made a good living as a successful movie theater proprieter and a homemaking mother. "My parents came with nothing. They all came with nothing," Van Buren later told The Associated Press. She went on to credit her parents with the social skills integral to her later writing career. "My contemporaries would come to me for advice—I got that from my mother: the ability to listen and to help other people with their problems. I also got Daddy's sense of humor."

Following their high school graduation, Van Buren and Landers attended college together at Morningside College in Sioux. Soon after, on July 2, 1938, the twins had a double wedding: Van Buren married a businessman named Morton Phillips, and her sister wed Jules Lederer, who would later found Budget Rent-a-Car.

'Dear Abby' Begins

In 1955, Landers began working as an advice columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times—authoring responses to readers for the successful "Ask Ann Landers"—and not long after, Van Buren followed suit. In her late 30s, Van Buren was offered a writing contract with the McNaught Syndicate. Her column, called "Dear Abby," debuted in the San Francisco Chronicle on January 9, 1956, and quickly proved to be a hit among readers. (She crafted her now-famous moniker by combining the names of two inspirational figures: the biblical hero Abigail and Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States.)

Family Feud

At the same time that Van Buren's career was just taking off, her relationship with her sister couldn't have become more sour: "Dear Abby" had created direct and serious competition for Landers, and, even worse, she hadn't known about Van Buren's column-writing plans. Angry and hurt, Landers severed all ties with her twin. "I felt betrayed. Because she didn't tell me that she was considering it, she didn't tell me—she just presented it as a fact," Landers later explained. The sisters' bitter dispute soon evolved into a hostile and very public rivalry that would last for nearly a decade.

"They became serious competitors," Henry Ginsburg, Landers's high school boyfriend, later said of the dispute.