Syndicated columnist dies from multiple myeloma Saturday

CHICAGO -- Ann Landers' advice column resonated with readers for nearly five decades because she wrote about topics that others often shied away from while dispensing advice that was never stale, her daughter said Sunday.\n"She was very brave about what she chose to get behind and she went public about some issues that other people wouldn't have," said Margo Howard, daughter of Esther Lederer, who wrote the column under the name Ann Landers. "She was able to change with the times. There was nothing dated about her opinions. She just made it her business to stay current."\nLederer died Saturday at the age of 83. Her death from multiple myeloma came less than two weeks before her July 4 birthday.\nLederer, who was known as Eppie, tackled issues such as homosexuality, abortion and AIDS in the column she started writing in 1955 in the Chicago Sun-Times. She switched syndication companies in 1987 and moved to the Chicago Tribune.\n"She was the gold standard for advice columnists because she took it seriously. She made it her business to be very serious," said Howard, who lives in Cambridge, Mass., and writes her own column, "Dear Prudence," for the online magazine Slate.\nLederer's twin sister, Pauline, followed her into the profession as writer of the Dear Abby column.\nDavid Grossvogel, a Cornell University professor who did a computer analysis of 10,000 of Lederer's columns for his 1986 book, "Dear Ann Landers: Our Intimate and Changing Dialogue with America's Best-Loved Confidante," said Lederer broke ground with her column.\n"She was among the very first to actually respond to people who had specific problems that would not normally have been allowed in print," Grossvogel said. "She lived through an age of very rapid changes. Since she touched on all of them, her impact was very widespread. Her skill was in simply moving abreast of the times."\nLederer often wrote pithy lines, but she always tried to help, Howard said.\n"Some of the other advice people would put 'em down and put 'em away and go for a great line. While she had her share of great lines, she never belittled the writer for the sake of a good joke," Howard said.\nLederer wrote in a way that gave readers the feeling she was talking with them individually, Grossvogel said.\n"She would be as interested in the big problems of the world as she was in tiny little concerns that agitated people such as which way toilet paper should be hung," he said.\nBob Greene, a syndicated columnist for the Tribune, said Lederer knew how to connect with readers through her words.\n"There was just no wall between Eppie and her readers. It just went directly from her to them. It's magic and she had it," said Greene, a colleague and friend of Lederer's.\nHer curiosity never stopped, which made her a great newswoman, Greene said.\n"She wasn't a know-it-all. She was a person who wanted to know it all. That's the difference," he said.\nHoward said she is touched by Americans' outpouring of support following her mother's death.\n"There are many generations who felt that she was their mother," she said. "She cared about them. It was just woven into the language. People understood who she was and where she was coming from."\nReaders should be able to enjoy Lederer's columns for at least another month because she wrote them about four weeks ahead, said Kathy Mitchell, Lederer's executive assistant.\nTribune spokeswoman Patty Wetli said the paper will print the columns that Lederer wrote in advance.\n"We're in consultation with her syndicate for what happens after that," Wetli said.\nHoward said her mother did not want the column to continue after her death.\n"She owned the copyright and she did not wish for the name to continue. She felt it was very much associated with her. That name will not continue," Howard said.\nShe did not know if there was interest in recycling her mother's old columns for future use in newspapers.\nLederer did not want a memorial service after her death, Howard said.\n"She really didn't want to bother anybody. She didn't want to put anybody out," Howard said. "She said, 'Let everyone say a little prayer privately."