Ann Landers never really existed!
It was a pen name created in 1943 by a Chicago Sun-Times advice columnist named Ruth Crowley, and taken over by Eppie Lederer in 1955.
The “Ask Ann Landers” advice column was a regular syndicated feature in many newspapers across North America for 56 years. This popularity led to the fictional Ann Landers becoming something of a national institution and cultural icon.
It is from these columns that the LifeDaily team selected the pieces of advice shown below.
Ruth Crowley was a Chicago nurse who had been writing a child-care column for the Sun since 1941. She chose the pseudonym at random, taking the surname ‘Landers’ from a family friend. Unlike her eventual successor Esther Lederer, Crowley kept her identity secret.
Lederer wrote the advice column from 1955 -2002 and changed its basis by including expert advice on many subjects. She eventually became the owner of the copyright but chose not to have a different writer continue the column after her death. Consequently, the “Ann Landers” column ceased after publication of the few weeks’ worth of material which she had already written.
She sometimes expressed unpopular opinions, such as her support for the legalization of prostitution. For many years she denounced homosexuality but reversed her opinion in 1992 after reviewing research and receiving nearly 75,000 letters from gays and lesbians saying that they were happy being gay.
“Ann Landers” gave thousands of pieces of advice over the years.
Browse our selection to understand why she was so popular for almost 60 years:
The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead.
The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven’t thought of yet.
Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.
You need that guy like a giraffe needs strep throat.
Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies.
I don’t believe that you have to be a cow to know what milk is.
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.
Know yourself. Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
Too many people today know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.
People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim.
One out of four people in this country is mentally unbalanced. Think of your three closest friends; if they seem OK, then you’re the one.
At every party there are two kinds of people – those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.
If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you’ll be married to a man who cheats on his wife.
Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself, the most comforting words of all; this, too, shall pass.
That was just a small selection of the advice of Ann Landers over the years.
Did you ever read her column? How do you rate the quality of the advice? Did you ever take it?
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