Pauline Esther "Bobo" Phillips, also known as Abigail Van Buren, was an American advice writer and broadcaster who began writing her Dear Abby column in 1956. The column became the most widely circulated newspaper column in the world, appearing in 1,400 newspapers with 110 million readers. From 1963 to 1975, Phillips also hosted a daily Dear Abby show on CBS Radio. Television host Diane Sawyer describes her as "the pioneering queen of salty advice." Pauline Esther Friedman, nicknamed "Bobo," was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to Russian Jewish immigrants Rebecca and Abraham B. Friedman, the owner of a chain of movie theaters. She was the youngest of four sisters and grew up in Sioux City. Her identical twin, Esther Pauline Friedman, was a columnist for Ann Landers. Lederer became Ann Landers in 1955, and inspired by her sister’s example, Phillips quickly followed suit by launching her own advice column. Describing her family’s immigration to America, Phillips says, “My parents came with nothing. They all came with nothing.” Her parents, she adds, never forgot the first impression of the Statue of Liberty. Surprisingly, the influence the Lady of the Harbor had on them. They held her dear, all their lives. Her sister, Esther, recalls their home life: “My father was the kind of man people came to for advice. My mother couldn’t turn away anyone with a difficult story. Our house was full of guests.” Phillips agreed, realizing that her parents had a clear influence on her personality: “I was vain. My contemporaries would come to me for advice. I got that from my mother: the ability to listen and help others with their problems. I also got my sense of humor from my father.” They both attended Central High School in Sioux City and Morningside College, where they both studied journalism and psychology, along with writing a syndicated gossip column for the college newspaper. They both played the violin. In July 1939, they were married in a double wedding on July 2, two days before their 21st birthdays. Pauline married Morton Phillips of Minneapolis, and had two children, a son, Edward J. Phillips, and a daughter, Jane Phillips. In the July 8, 2017 Dear Abby, Jane Phillips said that her mother liked to have twins while her aunt wanted to have singles, which caused a rift between them. Pauline's writing career that led to Dear Abby began in January 1956, when she was 37 and new to the greater San Francisco area. Sometime during this period, the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle called and said she could write a better advice column than the one she was reading in the paper. After hearing her modest credentials, editor Stanley “Oak” Arnold gave her some letters that needed answers, and told her to return them within a week. Phillips got her responses to the Chronicle in an hour and a half. In an interview with Larry King, she said she had no work experience and lacked even a Social Security number. Still, the editor asked if she was a professional writer. He said her writing was “brilliant,” and she was hired that day. She went by the pseudonym Abigail Van Buren, after the Old Testament prophecy from the Book of Samuel: Then David said to Abigail… ‘Blessed is your counsel and your blessing.’” “Van Buren” was used after President Martin Van Buren. Phillips says that because she applied for the columnist job without telling her sister first, it created bad feelings between them for years. Each wrote her own column, and as rival journalists, they sometimes clashed. In 1956, Phillips offered her column to the Sioux City Journal at a discount, provided the paper refused to print her sister's column. The sisters reconciled in 1964, but remained rivals. In 1958, just two years after writing her columns, she became "the most widely quoted woman in the world," according to Life magazine. Although newspapers had featured gossip and personal columnists for more than a century, the sisters added "something special," Life writes, in that they were the first to publish letters and their responses covering a wide range of personal problems. From as many as 9,000 letters a week in their early years, they responded with answers to people from all walks of life, including doctors, lawyers, and clergy, as well as pregnant teenagers, harassed husbands, single mothers, alcoholics, homosexuals, and mistresses. More than the columnists of previous decades, their style of writing was defined by their own, ripping off “violin lines,” but always rooted in common sense. Phillips was described thus by The New York Times: With her comic, sardonic, but fundamentally sympathetic voice, Ms. Phillips helped to right the advice column from its acerbic Victorian past to its 20th-century status. Phillips was considered a political liberal, but a conservative in person. She remained reluctant to advise unmarried couples to live together, for example, until the 1990s, yet she was easily adaptable to social changes. One example: Both Phillips and her sister were considered remarkable women shortly after they began their careers, known for being bright and entertaining, writing with “earthy wit, audacity and self-assurance,” often embodied in Phillips’s “one-liners.” The editor of the Chicago Sun-Times described her skill as "beyond mere cunning," a quality very close to true wisdom. “Amy Dickinson, a popular columnist who penned her columns after Dear Abby, says that Phillips was a “master” in her ability to write with both “true honesty” and “empathy,” while at the same time being able to respond with “tough love” when needed: The letters that both Phillips and her sister chose to publish were intended to give a general overview of “the most intimate human difficulties” that contributed to their immediate acceptance. Life magazine explains: Phillips reported that the most sensitive letters she received were never published, but were responded to individually. Sometimes she would write a brief note on the letter itself, leaving one of her secretaries to respond fully using her advice. If someone seemed suicidal from their letter, she would call them on the phone. As Life notes: As part of their work, both sisters collaborated with other editors, publishers, and the general public whenever they could. “They never forgot a name,” they said, and were unabashed public speakers: “They would go around the country appearing on radio and television and—dressed like movie actresses.” "The Extras" - holding thousands of housewives in speeches in theaters and halls. Like her sister, Phillips was considered "the embodiment of feminine orthodoxy." They made their husbands and families the top priority in their lives, and felt that "marriage should always be, even when it is affected by male madness." Phillips typically spoke in glowing terms about her husband in public, describing him as "passionate" or smoking with him in restaurants. This attitude continued in her columns in the late 1950s, where Phillips viewed women who could not make their marriages work as "weakly ridiculous." Her "code of conduct" was "husband and children first." In her later years, she did not shy away from suggesting divorce when the relationship became "unbearable," and considered how a bad marriage could affect children: "When children see parents fighting, or even cutting each other, I think it hurts terribly." Both Phillips and her sister enjoyed associating with celebrities, and because of their own reputations, celebrities loved to be seen with either of them. Among Phillips's friends soon after she began her column were politicians, including Senators Hubert Humphrey and Herbert Lehman; and entertainers, including Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. They also admired Bishop Fulton Sheen, whom they met when learning about Catholicism while studying other religions. The bishop in return admired them for their ability to remain "uncultured" and unaffected by other people's fame. Phillips, who is Jewish, commented, "He's one of the greatest men I've ever met, but he'll be a Jew before I'll be a Catholic." Phillips and Bishop Sheen corresponded often and she recalls her letters: Phillips was an honorary member of Women in Communications, the American College of Psychiatrists, and the National Council of Jewish Women. She wrote six books: Dear Abby, Dear Teenager, Dear Abby on Marriage, Where Were You When President Kennedy Was Shot?, Dear Abby the Wedding Planner, and The Best Dear Abby. The Dear Abby Show aired on CBS Radio for 12 years. When asked toward the end of her career whether her years of column writing were too much work, she said, "It's only work if you'd rather be doing something else." She felt her career had been "wonderful, exciting, and incredibly rewarding." At some point in her life, Phillips stopped driving. Her daughter, Jane, said she quit after she was rear-ended by a coal truck during a Wisconsin winter, with Jane scarred for life from the incident. From 1987 until her mother's retirement, her daughter Jane co-wrote the column. In 2002, when Alzheimer's disease made it impossible for Phillips to continue writing, Jane assumed all writing responsibilities for Dear Abby. After the family announced Pauline's illness, Jane assumed the name Abigail Van Buren. Phillips died on January 16, 2013, at the age of 94, after battling Alzheimer's for 11 years. She is survived by her husband of 73 years, Morton Phillips, her daughter Jane Phillips, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Her son Edward died in 2011 at the age of 66.