Arthur Miller once said, “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” The same could be said for a good columnist. The same could be said for Eppie Lederer.
Her readers told her their problems, their concerns and their inspirations. She listened to them and she answered. And millions of people across the nation listened in on the conversation.
Over the decades there have been imitators, some on television, some on radio. And though Eppie might pop up from time to time to be interviewed on the air, we’re proud that from 1955 until her death on Saturday the newspaper was the way she reached all those many people as the columnist Ann Landers.
Her advice could be tart, it could be sage, it could be funny . . . it could even be wrong. She was not reluctant to concede that she changed her mind sometimes, that, as everyone does, she learned as she grew older. She could admit her own mistakes and she could share her own pain, as she did most famously when she announced in 1975 the end of her marriage.
Sunday’s Tribune noted all the official accolades–honorary degrees from 33 universities, the Albert Lasker Public Service Award, the poll that found she was the most influential woman in the U.S., the invitations to serve on presidential commissions and the boards of some of the most influential organizations in the world.
Yet the greatest honor might have been this: she was refrigerator material.
It happened one time or another in just about every home. The poignancy of a letter or the wisdom of her response would strike someone’s fancy or strike a nerve. These were conversations to be shared. Sometimes Ann Landers offered the advice a mother couldn’t bring herself to voice to a son, a husband couldn’t blurt out to his wife. The column would be clipped out of the paper and posted with a magnet on the refrigerator, which is the town square in every household.
What a remarkable life, what a remarkable achievement. Not just that she made such a deep connection with her readers, but that the bond lasted and lasted, that it was shared by different generations, that it stayed intensely relevant through the button-down `50s and the revolutionary `60s and the disillusioning `70s and on and on until today.
Eppie Lederer was 83. She is survived by her twin sister, by a daughter, by three grandchildren, by four great-grandchildren, and by the millions and millions of people who knew her as their very good friend.
