'Dear Abby,' Pauline Friedman Phillips, Dies At 94

Pauline Friedman Phillips, aka Abigail Van Buren of the Dear Abby advice column, died on Wednesday at the age of 94.

Phillips started her Dear Abby column in 1956 for the San Francisco Chronicle. Dear Abby is the most syndicated column in the world, as it is featured in over 1,400 newspapers every week, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Offering witty, concise advice ran in Phillips’s family. Phillips started her column shortly after her identical twin sister, Esther "Eppie" Friedman Lederer began writing the popular Ann Landers advice column. This mimicry created friction between the sisters, but, they eventually settled their differences.

Phillips’s pen name, Abigail Van Buren, was a mashup of two famous figures, Abigail from the Bible’s First Book of Samuel, and former U.S. President Martin Van Buren.

Phillips had been battling Alzheimer’s disease since 2002, the same year her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, took over writing the column. She is survived by her daughter, Jeanne, her husband, Morton Phillips, and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.