PEOPLE IN AMERICA
–
August 4, 2002: Ann Landers
By Caty Weaver
VOICE ONE:
I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today, we tell about
advice writer Ann Landers.
((THEME))
VOICE ONE:
Many newspapers in the United States have writers who give advice. Some are experts
about issues like gardening, food, health or money. People will write to the expert about
a problem and he or she will try to solve it.
There also are advice writers who deal with the more personal issues in life. They
answer questions about all kinds of things—love, children, mental health problems,
morals. This was the kind of advice column that Esther Lederer wrote. She wrote it
under the name of Ann Landers.
VOICE TWO:
Mizz Lederer did not study to become a newspaper writer. In fact, she did not finish her university studies at
Morningside College, in Sioux City, Iowa.
She was born in Sioux City on July fourth, nineteen-eighteen. Her parents named her Esther Pauline Friedman.
Esther’s younger sister was born a few minutes later. She was given the same two first names in opposite order-
Pauline Esther. The twins, Eppie and Popo as they were called, had two older sisters.
Their father, Abraham Friedman had come to the United States from Russia. He sold chickens when he first
arrived. Soon, he became a successful businessman who owned movie theaters in several states.
Eppie said she owed a lot to her parents and her childhood in the Middle West. She says both provided her with
morals and values that helped her a lot in life.
VOICE ONE:
Eppie Friedman was in college when she met Jules Lederer. She left school to marry him in nineteen-thirty-nine.
Mister Lederer was a businessman. He helped establish a car service called Budget Rent-A-Car. It became very
successful. Mister and Missus Lederer had their first and only child, Margo, in Nineteen-Forty.
For years Eppie Lederer was happy to stay home and raise her child while her husband’s business grew. They
lived in Wisconsin at first. Missus Lederer became politically active in the Democratic Party there.
In nineteen-fifty-five, the Lederers moved to Chicago, Illinois. That same year, the Chicago Sun-Times
newspaper held a competition among its employees. The paper wanted to find a replacement for its advice
columnist who wrote under the name Ann Landers. Eppie Lederer heard about the competition from a friend at
the paper and decided to enter. She was one of thirty people who sought the job.
The competition was simple. Competitors were given several letters from people requesting help on different
issues. The person who wrote the answers the newspaper officials liked best would win the job.
VOICE TWO:
Missus Lederer used the help of powerful friends to decide the best advice. For example, one letter writer asked
about a tree that dropped nuts on her property. The tree grew on land owned by someone else. The letter writer
wanted to know what she could do with the nuts.
Eppie Lederer decided that this was really a legal question so she sought help from a friend who knew about the
law. That friend just happened to be a judge on the United States Supreme Court!
Another letter was about a Roman Catholic Church issue. So Eppie Lederer talked to the president of a famous
Catholic university, Notre Dame.
The Chicago Sun Times reportedly called Missus Lederer a few days after the competition ended. When she
answered the telephone a newspaper official said “Good Morning, Ann Landers.
”
((MUSIC BRIDGE))
VOICE ONE:
The new Ann Landers discovered the job was not easy. She reportedly was deeply affected by many of the sad
letters she received from troubled people. Missus Lederer later said that one Sun-Times editor helped her harden
herself to those stories. He said she must separate herself from her readers and their problems. She said she would
not have been successful in her work if it were not for that advice.
Ann Landers’
popularity grew quickly. She immediately established herself as different from advice writers of
the past. She became known for her easy writing style and her often funny answers. She related to her readers as
if they were old friends. She seemed to say exactly what she thought, even when doing so might hurt the feelings
of those seeking help. Most people considered Ann Landers’
advice to be good, common sense.
For example, early in her work a young person wrote to ask Ann Landers opinion of sexual activity among
teenagers. She explained her objection to such activity by saying, “a lemon squeezed too many times is
considered garbage.
”
VOICE TWO:
As Ann Landers gained fame so did many of her words. People began to repeat some her short, pointed
sentences. One of the most famous of these was when she told readers to “wake up and smell the coffee.
”
She
would use this comment when advice seekers seemed to be denying situations that made them unhappy or
uncomfortable.
Another well-known Ann Landers saying was “forty lashes with a wet noodle.
”
She would say this if she
believed someone had done something mean, dishonest or just stupid. Ann Landers did not protect herself from
such criticism, however. She often published letters from readers who argued against advice she had given. When
she agreed with their criticism, she sometimes ordered the forty lashes for herself!
Ann Landers took a lot of risks in her column. She spoke out about many issues that some people considered
offensive or socially unacceptable. She discussed homosexuality, alcoholism, drug dependency and mistreatment
of children by parents to list a few.
VOICE ONE:
Ann Landers also spoke out on political issues. She expressed her strong opposition to American involvement in
the conflict in Vietnam. She was a major supporter of gun control and the right of a woman to choose to end a
pregnancy. She also supported using animals in medical research.
These opinions made her an enemy of several groups, including the National Rifle Association, abortion
opponents, and animal protection organizations. But, their pressure did not appear to worry Ann Landers. In fact,
she once said she felt proud that these groups hated her.
Her political activism was sometimes powerful. She expressed her support of legislation for cancer research in
her column in nineteen-seventy-one. President Richard Nixon received hundreds of thousands of copies of the
column from Ann Landers readers. He soon signed the one -hundred-million dollar National Cancer Act.
((MUSIC BRIDGE))
VOICE TWO:
In nineteen -seventy-five, Eppie Lederer’s life changed. Her husband, Jules, told her he was involved with
another woman. That relationship had been going on for several years. Mister and Missus Lederer separated.
This experience affected Ann Landers’
advice about seriously troubled marriages. She had always advised
couples to stay together to avoid hurting their children. After her separation from her husband she wrote a column
about her decision to end her marriage. She received tens of thousands of letters from her readers offering their
support and sympathy.
Ann Landers continued to suggest that a husband and wife in a troubled marriage seek counseling. But she was
now more willing to consider that a marriage might be beyond repair.
VOICE ONE:
Eppie Lederer’s sister Popo also became an advice columnist. Her column was called Dear Abby. Like Ann
Landers, Dear Abby was published in thousands of newspapers. Some reports say the competition between the
two advice columns led to a dispute between the twin sisters. They reportedly did not speak for five years.
Eppie Lederer’s daughter Margo Howard is an advice columnist as well. But, neither her daughter or her sister
won the kind of fame and following that Ann Landers did. Her column appeared in The Chicago Tribune and
about one-thousand-two-hundred other newspapers around the world. Her advice reached tens of millions of
people every day. That was her goal. She said having many readers was more important to her than winning a
famous prize.
VOICE TWO:
In January two-thousand-two, doctors discovered that Eppie Lederer had multiple myeloma. It is a very serious
form of cancer of the bone marrow. Her death came just six months later, on June twenty-second. She was
eighty-three.
Eppie Lederer owned the rights to the Ann Landers name and did not want it to be used after she died. So
millions of people around the world have received the last words of advice from Ann Landers.
((THEME))
VOICE ONE:
This VOA Special English program was written and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of
America.
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