By Elizabeth Gregerson
Ann Landers was the prolific writer of the nationally syndicated advice column, aptly named, “Ask Ann Landers.” A career that spanned decades saw her address issues ranging from wedding etiquette to the legalization of sex work. So influential was her advice that she became affectionately known as ‘America’s Mother.’
She also never existed.
Ann Landers was a pen name created by the columnist’s first writer, Ruth Crowley, in 1943. After Crowley’s passing, a contest was held to find someone who could fill Ann Landers’ shoes. Only one writer included actual expert opinion in her submission and was offered the job. That is how in 1955, housewife Eppie Lederer became Ann Landers, a persona she would embody until her death in 2002.
The “Ask Ann Landers” column ran for 56 years in total, with Eppie Lederer at the helm for 47 of those years. The column moved from the Chicago Sun-Times to the Chicago Tribune in 1987 and was syndicated in newspapers all across America. The column’s only real competition was, ironically, the ”Dear Abby” column written and produced by Lederer’s twin sister Pauline Phillips.
I remember pulling up to our kitchen island as a child, taking the newspaper I stole from my mother’s office and flattening it out completely so I could read the advice columns.
I don’t remember the exact advice I read but I remember looking forward to each chance I had to read Ann Landers’ thoughtful and sometimes quippy responses. It felt like I was secretly peaking in on a sophisticated women’s conversation. I was confident Ann Landers knew exactly what she was talking about. Decades later, my inner child is enamored and obsessed with Lederer’s story.
As an aside, I also distinctly remember wondering why advice columns always seemed to have been written by women whose names started with the letter ‘A.’ My adolescent brain decided perhaps women with ‘A’ names have some sort of authority over right and wrong behavior that I didn’t quite understand but gladly accepted.
Beyond Lederer’s symbolic role as America’s mother, answering readers’ questions on how they should handle life’s everyday conundrums, she was also an advisor to some of the most influential figures in American politics and society.
According to a 2003 retrospective on Lederer in Chicago Magazine, she was in correspondence with Bill Clinton, Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Jimmy Carter. She maintained friendships with journalists like Barbara Walters, Roger Ebert and Walter Cronkite. Celebrities like Robert Redford, Kirk Douglas and Michael Jordan were reportedly in her circle of acquaintances and friends. A bona fide media icon, Lederer never hid behind the shadow of Ann Landers.
She didn’t feel the need to keep her opinions to herself, though she did have to retract and apologize for them a few times. One such incident was when Lederer offered up, and later issued an apology for, her evaluation of Pope John Paul II.
“He has a sweet sense of humor. Of course, he’s a Polack,” she said. “They’re very anti-women.”
Lederer was also not ashamed to admit when she had changed her mind on previously held, and previously published, beliefs. While never outright supporting the legalization of gay marriage, she publicly renounced her previously held positions on the gay community. She then remained consistent about her support of the gay community and their rights.
A Chicago Tribune obituary for Lederer quotes her as saying, “I’ve changed my mind about a few things. Early on, I knew nothing about homosexuality. Later, I became sympathetic because I understood they were born ‘that way.’”
Known for being driven around the city of Chicago in a limousine with a license plate that marked the start of her column, “AL 1955,” Lederer was not afraid of her success. She lived in a 5,500-square-foot luxury co-op on East Lake Shore Drive. Author Carol Felsenthal wrote of Lederer’s life and style:
“The place was brimming with antiques, reproductions, middling art, and knickknacks, although the most valuable object was always Eppie herself-expensively dressed, bejeweled, and accessorized.”
The version of myself still sitting at the kitchen island is thrilled to learn the sophisticated woman I envisioned was even more glamourous than I had imagined.
Lederer passed away at home in 2002 after a battle with multiple myeloma, though her column continued posthumously for a few weeks after her death because, as Felsenthal wrote, Lederer “kept about six weeks ahead of deadline, and she never missed a column.”
Eppie Lederer, the writer, left her mark on the media landscape as one of the industry’s most legendary columnists, Ann Landers.
Eppie Lederer, the woman, quite literally left her mark on Chicago as The International Club at the Drake Hotel allegedly affixed a brass nameplate to her regular table in her honor.
While Ann Landers may have never lived, Eppie Lederer surely did.